The sergeant looked.
"You are right," he replied. "Eight parts."
Hullin could bear no more. He fled, pale as death, to the innkeeper, Wittmann's. Wittmann was also a dealer in leather and furs, and cried, as he saw him enter:
"Ha! it is you, Master Jean-Claude; you are earlier than usual. I did not expect you before next week." Then, seeing him tremble, he asked: "But what is the matter? You are ill."
"I have just been looking at the wounded."
"Ah! yes. The first time it affects one; but if you had seen fifteen thousand pass, as I have, you would think nothing of it."
"A glass of wine, quick!" cried Hullin. "O men, men! you who should be brothers!"
"Yes, brothers until the purse gives out," replied Wittmann. "There, drink, and you will feel better."
"And you have seen fifteen thousand of these wretches pass," said the sabot-maker.
"At least; and all in the last two months, without speaking of those that remained in Alsace and on the other side of the Rhine; for, you know, wagons could not be procured for all, and it was not worth while removing many."