One might
not go in; customers were herded outside, like sheep. "And although
you were outside, if you weren't satisfied, and groused too much,
they chased you off."
Any news yet? It is said that severe penalties have been imposed on
those who plunder the population, and there is already a list of
convictions. Volpatte has been sent down. Men of Class '93 are going
to be sent to the rear, and Pepere is one of them.
When Barque brings in the harvest of the fry-pan, he announces that
our hostess has soldiers at her table--ambulance men of the
machine-guns. "They thought they were the best off, but it's us
that's that," says Fouillade with decision, lolling grandly in the
darkness of the narrow and tainted hole where we are just as
confusedly heaped together as in a dug-out. But who would think of
making the comparison?
"Vous savez pas," says Pepin, "the chaps of the 9th, they're
in clover! An old woman has taken them in for nothing, because of
her old man that's been dead fifty years and was a rifleman once on
a time. Seems she's even given them a rabbit for nix, and they're
just worrying it jugged."
"There's good sorts everywhere. But the boys of the 9th had famous
luck to fall into the only shop of good sorts in the whole village."
Palmyra comes with the coffee, which she supplies. She thaws a
little, listens to us, and even asks questions in a supercilious
way: "Why do you call the adjutant 'le juteux'?"
Barque replies sententiously, "'Twas ever thus.
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