Those who are
aware of it gather round him, bringing their pipes packed and cold.
There is not even any paper to light, and the flame itself must be
used until the remaining spirit in its tiny insect's belly is
burned.
As for me, I've been lucky, and I see Paradis wandering about, his
kindly face to the wind, grumbling and chewing a bit of wood.
"Tiens," I say to him, "take this."
"A box of matches!" he exclaims amazed, looking at it as one looks
at a jewel. "Egad! That's capital! Matches!"
A moment later we see him lighting his pipe, his face saucily
sideways and splendidly crimsoned by the reflected flame, and
everybody shouts, "Paradis' got some matches!"
Towards evening I meet Paradis near the ruined triangle of a
house-front at the corner of the two streets of this most miserable
among villages.
He beckons to me. "Hist!" He has a curious and rather awkward air.
"I say," he says to me affectionately, but looking at his feet, "a
bit since, you chucked me a box of flamers. Well, you're going to
get a bit of your own back for it. Here!"
He puts something in my hand. "Be careful!" he whispers, "it's
fragile!"
Dazzled by the resplendent purity of his present. hardly even daring
to believe my eyes, I see--an egg!
16
An Idyll
"REALLY and truly," said Paradis, my neighbor in the ranks, "believe
me or not, I'm knocked out--I've never before been so paid on a
march as I have been with this one, this evening.
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