Pelletan called out for the hospital orderly, and the man came.
"I've got some money here," said he, holding up the bag in which he had replaced the coins. "It's the money you got me yesterday for that order. I'm just off the hooks as you very well know and I have no one to give the stuff to except my friend here. He has used me well and I give it to him. You are witness."
"Yes," replied the man.
Pelletan handed the bag to Jacques. It was his last act. As though the gold coins had been his last drops of blood he fell back on the pillows and in five minutes he was no longer a soldier of the Legion.
Jacques gave the orderly a louis and marched off with the little bag in his pocket.
He was rich enough now to attempt his escape again from Algeria and to have a fair sum left over with which to begin life in some foreign country, but he was not thinking of escape. He was thinking of Mimi Tricot.
Mimi was always bewailing the fact that she had not enough money to start in a bigger business.
"Even a few hundred francs," she had said, "would help to get credit with and with credit one can get anything—but what can one do with customers like you légionnaires?"
This speech was in his memory as he went back to barracks, and all through the afternoon drill he was thinking of Mimi.
He was greatly torn in his mind, the gold pulling one way and Mimi the other.