I begin to laugh. It had been very apparent to me that all my comrades had admired them——
Yes, I recall, when the general was talking to me, I heard one of them say to the other:
"What wonderful boots!"
That is not all! I got ready for bed—From to-morrow a new life opened for me—I began with the boots.
I unlaced them, but perceived with despair that, in spite of energetic efforts, I could not pull them off my feet——
Unnerved and swearing like a madman, using the furniture as a buttress, I painfully succeeded in getting one off—but the other? Impossible!
This damned boot did not seem to understand—I heard a noise in the room above. Decidedly it is M. and Mme. Lévy who are frightened!
The next day at seven o'clock in the morning, my orderly, Lefèvre, entered my room. He opened his mouth very wide on finding his lieutenant in a pretty white bed, a leg swinging over the side with a new boot on it——