"Well, what of that?"
"What of that! Nom de Dieu! You wouldn't be asking 'what of that' if you had a daughter in love with a légionnaire. You would be getting out a gun and shooting him. Well, the thing is not to be helped. It is a matter accomplished. When a man makes a fool of himself there is only one thing to be said for the situation, it is a matter accomplished. When do you see her?"
"In the evenings sometimes."
"Where?"
"Well," said Raboustel, "I saw her the first few times in the shop of her father, lately she has come to speak to me at the corner of the Grand Boulevard where it cuts the Street of the Crescent. She meets me there and we talk. Sometimes we walk a bit in the Boulevard and she looks into the shop windows, not wanting me to buy her things, you understand, but still, there you are. I couldn't if I wanted to—that's what's troubling me. I want to."
"And you can't. Well, we must see what can be done," replied Jacques. "I was in your position once, when I first joined. I hadn't been a week in the Legion when I lost my head over a girl, she was a daughter of a fruit-seller who used to peddle oranges on the Place Sadi Carnot. Abarbanell was his name, he was the colour of an old service boot, and she was the prettiest girl in Sidi—so I thought. I had a few francs left over from the money I had brought into the service, and I bought her some beads, amber beads made of glass. I went to give them to her and I found her arm in arm with a Spahi. She laughed at the beads, so did the Spahi; well, he did not laugh when I was trying to make him swallow them. He on the pavement and I on the top of him. They took him off to the hospital and I got ten days' cells, and when I came out, Abarbanell had been shot out of Algeria for selling drink without a permit and his daughter shot after him for robbing the men he made drunk. Well, let's see, maybe I can help you to get something to give this girl of yours. Times are not good; no, indeed. They could not be pretty much worse. Still, there are ways. I'll think it over."
He did, and two days later he called Raboustel into the cook-shop of the Legion, where there was no one except the cook, a solemn-faced German, engaged in cutting up the meat for the evening soupe.
"Here is what I have got you," said Jacques.
He went to the corner of the place and produced something wrapped up in a cloth. It was a tiny cage, and in the cage were two little birds.
"It's the best I can do," said Jacques, "and they are worth five francs in the market. It's a cock and a hen, and here's a bag of bird seed, the stuff they're used to, that and a drop of water is all they want—she'll know."