He and Humel did not seem in the least disposed to make friends with the new-comer.
Reservists kept on arriving in an uninterrupted string, their rejoining orders in their hands.
"Here are the people we're going to get killed with," Guillaumin said. "What sort do they look?"
Beaucerons for the most part, reserved, obstinate, weather-beaten beings, who did not talk much. When they did it was with a guttural accent. I was able to identify the faces of a certain number of worthy farmers, the Simeons and Gaudéreaux whom I had noticed during my year's services. From a distance they all seemed our elders, with their scored faces, and their bodies bent and thickened by the rough work in the fields. A minority of Parisians were making four times more noise than the others. I raised my eyebrows. I had caught sight of Judsi with his queer clown's face—a bad stock—and further on, Lamalou, a huge fellow with a weakness for the fair sex, who had come back from the punishment battalions in Africa; a good sort, but terrible when he had been drinking.
"The deuce!" I said to Guillaumin. "We've got some bad hats."
"They make the best soldiers!"
Judsi was raising roars of laughter by handing round the hat, his hat, an extraordinary object which he must have picked up for fun on the high road.
"Help a pore man!"
He humbugged: Didn't his pals agree that it was just the time to go and fetch a few kilos of red wine? Who knew whether they wouldn't have kicked the bucket by to-morrow.
He ended by collecting about four francs. He went off and came back in ten minutes' time carrying seven or eight bottles.