"And I, who thought life a matter of coats and neckties," he said, with that quick recognition of his own error that first endeared him to me and made him the better man of the two.
We stood for a few minutes watching the excited groups of men on the Boulevard. At the cafés the street boys were selling newspapers at a prodigious rate, and wherever a soldier could be seen there were many pressing him to drink.
"In Berlin," they shouted, "you will get sour beer, so you must drink good red wine when it is to be had." And the diminutive bulwarks of France were ready enough, we may be sure, to swallow Dutch courage.
"In Berlin!" echoed Giraud, at my side. "Will it end there?"
"There or in Paris," answered I, and lay no claim to astuteness, for the words were carelessly uttered.
We drove through the noisy streets, and Frenchmen never before or since showed themselves to such small advantage—so puerile, so petty, so vain. It was "Berlin" here and "Berlin" there, and "Down with Prussia" on every side. A hundred catchwords, a thousand raised voices, and not one cool head to realize that war is not a game. The very sellers of toys in the gutter had already nicknamed their wares, and offered the passer a black doll under the name of Bismarck, or a monkey on a stick called the King of Prussia.
It was with difficulty that I brought Alphonse Giraud to a grave discussion of the pressing matter we had in hand, for his superficial nature was open to every wind that blew, and now swayed to the tempest of martial ardour that swept across the streets of Paris.
"I think," he said, "I will buy myself a commission. I should like to go to Berlin. Yes—Howard, mon brave, I will buy myself a commission."
"With what?"
"Ah—mon Dieu!—that is true. I have no money. I am ruined. I forgot that."