CHAPTER II.
KING BOOZY.
The next morning, while Sergeant Hardy was standing near the main entrance to the Fens on Commonwealth Avenue, he was glad to see in the distance the figures of the two nurses and their two charges.
Eugene, holding himself as straight as a dart, was a little in advance of the others; while Virgie frisked around him, first on one side and then on the other, and occasionally paused to throw back a few words to the nurses, whose heads were nodding in busy conversation.
The sergeant was glad to see that Eugene looked happier than he had done the day before. Indeed, he was comparatively cheerful this morning; and when he got near the sergeant, his cap came off his head in a twinkling, and he said gayly, “Good-morning, sir.”
“Bong zhoor, musso,” said the sergeant, in rather indifferent French. “You look as pleased as if you’d got a freedom suit.”
Eugene’s curiosity was piqued. “Will you explain, sir?” he said prettily. “You mention a phrase that I have never met before.”
“Well,” said the sergeant, planting himself in the middle of the pavement, while the nurses and the children stood round him in respectful attention, “long ago, when I was a young man, I lived in the country. Every lad, when he was twenty-one, used to get a suit of new clothes, a dress-suit and a tall hat, which he called a freedom suit. This suit was kept for special occasions, like going to church, and funerals, and weddings, and making calls on our lady friends. I can just see the young fellows riding in from the farms on horseback, proud as Punch, with their coat-tails tucked in their pockets to keep them clean.”
“How droll!” said Eugene.
“How droll!” little Virgie repeated after him.