"
"Ass!" comes the chorus. "Within reach of passing soldiers! Not
dotty, are you?"
"It's hard lines all the same," wails Tirloir. Then suddenly a fit
of rage seizes him, his face crumples, his little fists clench in
fury, he tightens them like knots in string and waves them about.
"Alors quoi? Ah, if I had hold of the mongrel that did it! Talk
about breaking his jaw--I'd stave in his bread-pan, I'd--there was a
whole Camembert in there, I'll go and look for it." He massages his
stomach with the little sharp taps of a guitar player, and plunges
into the gray of the morning, grinning yet dignified, with his
awkward outlines of an invalid in a dressing-gown. We hear him
grumbling until he disappears.
"Strange man, that," says Pepin; the others chuckle. "He's
daft and crazy," declares Marthereau, who is in the habit of
fortifying the expression of his thought by using two synonyms at
once.
* * * * * *
"Tiens, old man," says Tulacque, as he comes up. "Look at this."
Tulacque is magnificent. He is wearing a lemon-yellow coat made out
of an oilskin sleeping-sack. He has arranged a hole in the middle to
get his head through, and compelled his shoulder-straps and belt to
go over it. He is tall and bony. He holds his face in advance as he
walks, a forceful face, with eyes that squint. He has something in
his hand. "I found this while digging last night at the end of the
new gallery to change the rotten gratings.
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