"Fit to make yer split, the blighter!"
He was never in better form than when we were in the tightest places, when all the others were down in the dumps. On the "Beauclair" evening, when we had to retire, he was worth seeing as he went off shouldering his rifle, with a Uhlan's helmet, picked up in some house, in his hand, and the air of a gentleman who had just put an end to the war in the most brilliant style, and was on his way home where his little wife was waiting to welcome him with open arms! Or again on the next day.... A hail of shells, which was beginning, had just set fire to a little bit of a house. He asked the cook's permission to make the coffee, carried off the camp kettle, collected some brands from the beams, and boiled the water on them at the window. The shower of the "Black Marias" continued. It was a miracle that he was not killed. But his luck, our luck, held.
What endless queer characters there were! Lamalou, Bouguet, Gaudéreaux. We've seen them all at work—one might go on naming them indefinitely. And Bouillon!
He had come one morning to ask my advice as to how to send money orders.
I had taken it as a joke:
"Send them, my dear fellow? This is more the sort of time to receive them!"
"It's for Marie," he said, "who's stayed behind with the kid!"
"Your kid?"
"I don't know about that!"
He explained that he had lived with a girl, a rag-gatherer like himself. They had struck up acquaintance when plying their hooks, and made love across the dust-bins—and they had come to an understanding. So far, so good. But then at the end of eight months—eight months exactly, that was the annoying part!—Marie had gone to Boucicaut for the birth of her child, a little duck, as pretty as could be! The point was not so much to find out who its father was, as to rear the little brat! It used to be quite a paying job—but then the great Trafalgar had come, and Blimey! ever since then there hadn't been none too much to be scratched up out o' them dust-bins—so he thought that as he had a bit o' cash he'd better send some to Marie, if it weren't more'n ten francs.