A tiny, black, piteous face looks out of the shawl, and huskily the man with the red gloves explains that he has been for weeks trying to get his travelling circus out of the danger-zone.
"The Army commandeered my horses. We had great difficulty in moving about. We wanted to get to Paris. All my poor animals have been terrified by the noises of the big guns. Especially the monkeys. They've all died except this one."
"You poor little beast!" says the Colonel, bending down.
He has seen men die in thousands, this gaunt Englishman with his eye in a sling.
But his voice is infinitely compassionate as he looks with one eye at the little shivering creature, and murmurs again, "You poor little brute!"
"Yesterday," adds the man with the red gloves, "my trick wolf escaped. She was a beauty, and so clever. When the War began I used to dress her up as a French solider,—red trousers, red cap and all! I s'pose you haven't seen a wolf, M'sieur, running about these parts?"
Nobody answers for a bit.
We are all stunned.
But the old fellow brightens up when he hears that his wolf ate the rabbit.