Paradis has stooped to look at the boots more closely, and suddenly he puts his hand out towards them. "Drop it, gran'ma; I'll spruce up your lass's trotter-cases for you in three secs."
The old woman lodges an objection by shaking her head and her shoulders. But Paradis takes the boots with authority, while the grandmother, paralyzed by her weakness, argues the question and opposes us with shadowy protest.
Paradis has taken a boot in each hand; he holds them gingerly and looks at them for a moment, and you would even say that he was squeezing them a little.
"Aren't they small!" he says in a voice which is not what we hear in the usual way.
He has secured the brushes as well, and sets himself to wielding them with zealous carefulness. I notice that he is smiling, with his eyes fixed on his work.
Then, when the mud has gone from the boots, he takes some polish on the end of the double-pointed brush and caresses them with it intently.
They are dainty boots—quite those of a stylish young lady; rows of little buttons shine on them.
"Not a single button missing," he whispers to me, and there is pride in his tone.
He is no longer sleepy; he yawns no more. On the contrary, his lips are tightly closed; a gleam of youth and spring-time lights up his face; and he who was on the point of going to sleep seems just to have woke up.
And where the polish has bestowed a beautiful black his fingers move over the body of the boot, which opens widely in the upper part and betrays—ever such a little—the lower curves of the leg. His fingers, so skilled in polishing, are rather awkward all the same as they turn the boots over and turn them again, as he smiles at them and ponders—profoundly and afar—while the old woman lifts her arms in the air and calls me to witness "What a very kind soldier!" he is.