“What did you answer?” I asked, for Pat, who must always share his correspondence, had shown me the letter.
“I told her,” grinned Pat, “she cu’d keep the clothes and maybe she’d find another man to fit ’em.”
But there is another and more serious side to the matter. It seems that the lady in the case has written to the Captain of A Company, requesting him to forward a large proportion of Pat’s pay to his deserving and indigent wife. Whether or not this will be done is still uncertain. Pat refuses to discuss the possibilities, but from the glint in his eyes I have a premonition that if next pay day Pat finds any considerable deduction made from his pay, that that night one wild Irishman will run amuck in Saint Thiebault.
Occasionally in the midst of Pat’s racy discourses I overhear things not meant for my ears, such as his remarking how in Rochester once he “went on a seven day’s pickle in company with a female dreadnut.” But usually he is very careful to only “pull gentle stuff” in my hearing. The other day he delivered himself of a wonderful dissertation on the deceitfulness of pious people, ending with this gem;
“So whenever I see one of these guys comin’ towards me with a gold crown on his bean, looking’ as if he couldn’t sin if he had to, why I nip tight on to my pocketbook and I cross to the other side of the street!”
Today Pat came into the canteen with a newspaper clipping and a letter to show me. The letter was from the Chief of Police of K——, one of the many cities in which Pat has resided during his short but crowded life, the clipping from the K—— Daily Sheet. The clipping was comprised of a letter which Pat had written to the Chief of Police giving in humorous phrase his version of life in France and an accompanying paragraph stating that though the writer had given the police force no little anxiety during his residence in K——, still he had been in spite of all, a good-hearted and likable rascal, and now that he had gone to war for his country, bygones should be bygones and K—— must be proud of him. The letter from the Chief was in much the same vein.
“Yes,” ruminated Pat; “I kept the old feller pretty busy, though me an’ him were friends just the same. But it sure would get the old man’s goat, just after he’d had me up and fined me, to come home and see me settin’ at his dinner-table alongside of his pretty daughter.”
Bourmont, December 14.
Because it took too much time right in the most important part of the day to climb Bourmont Hill for mess at night, I have arranged to take my suppers with two little old ladies here in Saint Thiebault. The suppers are to consist of a bowl of cocoa and a slice of bread with jam. The little ladies supply the bread and milk for the cocoa and I supply the rest, paying them one franc a day.
At half-past five I put on my things, light my little candle-lantern and set forth. The boys, coming in after mess, will be crowding the hut; a chorus of anxious voices queries.