"
When she has disappeared, we criticize our coffee. "Talk about
clear! You can see the sugar ambling round the bottom of the
glass."--"She charges six sous for it."--"It's filtered water."
The door half opens, and admits a streak of light. The face of a
little boy is defined in it. We entice him in like a kitten and give
him a bit of chocolate.
Then, "My name's Charlie," chirps the child. "Our house, that's
close by. We've got soldiers, too. We always had them, we had. We
sell them everything they want. Only, voila, sometimes they
get drunk."
"Tell me, little one, come here a bit," says Cocon, taking the boy
between his knees. "Listen now. Your papa, he says, doesn't he,
'Let's hope the war goes on,' eh?" [note 2]
"Of course," says the child, tossing his head, "because we're
getting rich. He says, by the end of May, we shall have got fifty
thousand francs."
"Fifty thousand francs! Impossible!"
"Yes, yes!" the child insists, stamping, "he said it to mamma. Papa
wished it could be always like that. Mamma, sometimes, she isn't
sure, because my brother Adolphe is at the front. But we're going to
get him sent to the rear, and then the war can go on."
These confidences are disturbed by sharp cries, coming from the
rooms of our hosts. Biquet the mobile goes to inquire. "It's
nothing," says he, coming back; "it's the good man slanging the
woman because she doesn't know how to do things, he says, because
she's made the mustard in a tumbler, and he never heard of such a
thing, he says.
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