At this the drummer cast me a searching look, cold, disdainful and commiserating, as much as to say to me,
“One can see that you’ve just come!”
As for the quartermaster, he replied to everything in the repertoire of the Eldorado. Without stopping his juggling, he shouted at me in his amazing voice:
Moi! je m’en fous,
Je reste tranquil’ment
Dans mon trou!...
He was going on when the infernal noise of some aerial trolley tore through space.
“Attention!” he cried, without moving from his mattress. “There’s the Metro!”
Almost at the same moment, a great shell, a “310” at least, burst in the court of the house opposite, demolished the roof, and crushed a dozen horses.