"I can't tell you," he replied, smiling.
He was a friend of mine, and I thought him most heartless to ridicule my trouble. In vain I asked him, while I was dressing, to explain what it meant, but he would not, and tortured me by asking in a jocular way how I would like a change of air and surroundings. At last I lost my temper.
"It's all very fine," I said, "to chaff a fellow when you know that he is going to be sent for three years and a half to hard labour in Algeria. You are simply a brute, that's all I can say."
"But suppose I don't know anything of the kind?" he replied, still smiling. "Why do you think so?"
"Well, I suppose, if I am going to be tried before the Conseil de discipline——"
"You ass!" he laughingly replied; "who spoke to you of Conseil de discipline? Aren't there other Conseils?"
I looked astonished.
"Have you never heard of the Conseil de réforme?" (Invalidation Commission) he said.
"You don't mean to say——"