“Monsieur desire?” A red-faced girl with a baby in her arms came up to them.
“That's Babette; Baboon I call her,” said Walters with a laugh.
“Chocolat,” said Walters.
“That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember.”
“I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is this. You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the typewriter tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night and I'll give it to you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to your sergeant. See?”
“This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out you'll have to make another.”
The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the darkness of the room with a candle and two cracked bowls from which steam rose, faint primrose-color in the candle light. Walters drank his bowl down at a gulp, grunted and went on talking.
“Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn soon too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the division'll be making out to be a college man. How did you get your tip?”
“From a fellow in Paris.”
“You've been to Paris, have you?” said Walters admiringly. “Is it the way they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at this woman here. She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a baby too!”