"Tell me, messieurs, you who are real soldiers from the front, you have seen that in the trenches, haven't you?"
"Er—yes—yes," reply the two poor fellows, horribly frightened and gloriously gratified.
"Ah!" the crowd murmurs, "did you hear? And they've been there, they have!"
When we find ourselves alone again on the flagged perfection of the pavement, Volpatte and Blaire look at each other and shake their heads.
"After all," says Volpatte, "it is pretty much like that you know!"
"Why, yes, of course!"
And these were their first words of false swearing that day.
We go into the Cafe de l'Industrie et des Fleurs. A roadway of matting clothes the middle of the floor. Painted all the way along the walls, all the way up the square pillars that support the roof, and on the front of the counter, there is purple convolvulus among great scarlet poppies and roses like red cabbages.
"No doubt about it, we've got good taste in France," says Tirette.