the little infantrymen we had so often seen as the air of that town was
different from deserted Paris. Just as he was, he might have stepped--
or ridden, rather--from some cavalry charge by Meissonier or Détaille; a
splendid fellow--head to spurs, all soldier.

After weeks of newspaper rhetoric and windy civilian partisanship, it
was like water in the desert to listen to him--straight talk from a
professional fighting man, modest, level-headed, and, like most fighting
men, as contrasted with those who stay at home and write about fighting,
ready to give a brave enemy his due. The German retirement was not at
all a rout. When an army is in flight it leaves baggage and equipment
behind, guns in the mud. The Germans had left very little; they were
falling back in good order. Their soldiers were good fighters,
especially when well led. They might lack the individual initiative of
Frenchmen, the nervous energy with which Frenchmen would keep on
fighting after mere bone and muscle had had enough, but they had plenty
of courage. Their officers--the dragoon paused. Yesterday, he said,
they had run into a troop of cavalry. The German officer ordered his
men to charge, and instead they wavered and started to fall back. He
turned on them. "Schweinhunde!" he shouted after them, and, flinging his
horse about, charged alone, straight at the French lances.

"Kill him?" asked the man at the head of the table.

The dragoon nodded. "It was a pity. Joli garçon he was"--he ran a hand
round a weather-beaten cheek as if to suggest the other's well-made
face--"monocle in his eye--and he never let go of it until it fell off--
a lance through his heart."

As we talked two secret-service-men entered, demanded our papers,