“Don’t trouble yourself, Logis. I’ll tell the groom to saddle the horses and bring them here.”
The smoke still persisted in the dark, littered confusion of the room, but combined with it now was an odor of burnt grease mixed with the moldy smell of a ragout with onions and strong cheese. In addition, spread out on the table, were the remnants of a meal, which had just been finished, the rolls, the account books and reports.
The quartermaster-corporal, the silent fellow from Marseilles, immersed in reading Le Soleil du Midi, did not even condescend to look up. In response to my friendly good-by, he let a scarcely perceptible “adieu” slip through his lips.
The quartermaster was stretched out on a dirty mattress thrown on the ground, and juggling two packages of English cigarettes, while he sang at the top of his lungs—and what a voice he had!—the latest song:
Mes amis, dans la vie
Faut faire des économies
Les journaux vous l’ont dit.
C’est aussi mon avis.
This intellectual refrain must have given him extreme pleasure, for he began it again and again without any interruption.
“Well,” I said, “judging from the looks of things, you aren’t often disturbed here?”