"How?" asked Horace, "it looks like a straight line to me."
"It isn't, though," Croquier answered. "I'll show you. Paris, instead of being 'home base' is now 'third base' and the Verdun to Belfort line is 'first base.' Then the Fourth and Fifth French armies are the operative corner or 'third base,' while the great armies of reserve, under General Foch, swinging into line on the south, are 'home base.' The military point of Paris, as 'third base' is the new Sixth Army as organized under General Manoury."
"Well, then," said Horace, "if the battlefield works out according to French ideas, we ought to win by the rebound given by Foch's army."
"A few days will show," said the hunchback. "I only wish that I could help in the actual fighting. But, I suppose, I'm just as useful making shells as firing them."
"One minute," said Horace, as they were about to separate for the night, "where are the British?"
"The Expeditionary Force is tucked away between Paris and the Fifth Army, with more than two thirds of its men lost. However, reënforcements are pouring over from England."
Early next morning, before Horace was awake, Croquier left the house to pick up the first news of the day. When he returned to the frugal breakfast the lad had prepared, however, he had very little information.
"All that I can find out," he said, "is that the Sixth Army, under Manoury, is wheeling up to Von Kluck's west flank."
"I don't seem to know much about the Sixth Army," said Horace. "Who are in it?"
The hunchback gave the details of the divisions as far as they were known.