And he struck up, in a clear voice:
"Ah, how I would love this cuirassier
If I were still a demoiselle."
Henri de Loubersac, who had just collided with the captain, burst into laughter, and warmly shook hands with him.
A limited number of people, some curious, others merely idle, were standing motionless in the Zoological Gardens. They were lining the palisade which surrounds the rocky basin where half a dozen crocodiles were performing their evolutions.
Besides children and nursemaids and governesses, there were also poverty-stricken creatures in rags, some students, a workman or two, the inevitable telegraph boy who was loitering on the way instead of hastening onwards with the telegrams, and, noticeably, a fair young man, smart, in tight-fitting overcoat and wearing a bowler hat. He had been standing there some ten minutes, and was giving but scant attention to the saurians. He was casting furtive glances around him, as though looking for someone.
If he were awaiting the arrival of some member of the fair sex, it hardly seemed the place for a love-tryst, this melancholy Zoological Gardens, misty, with the leaves falling, gradually baring the trees at the approach of winter.
A uniform suddenly appeared in one of the paths: it was a sergeant belonging to the commissariat department, who was passing rapidly, bent on business.
Directly the fair young man saw him he left his place by the palisade and hid himself behind a tree, muttering:
"Decidedly one has to be constantly on the defensive!" He unbuttoned his coat and looked at his watch.