"Tiens. What did you do?"
"I drove a coal team, monsieur."
"How, then, did you happen to come here?"
"I used to deliver coal to the hotel. One day I heard that the Swiss had gone to the café to take the place of a garçon whose class had just been called out. I was getting sick of carrying the heavy sacks of coal, and being always out of doors, so I applied for the porter's job."
"You are satisfied with the change."
"Oh, yes, indeed, monsieur."
"I suppose you have kinsmen at the front."
"Only my sister's son, monsieur."
"In the active forces?"
"No, he is a reservist. He is a man thirty-five years of age. He was wounded by a shrapnel ball in the groin early in the spring, but is now at the front again."