window of an inn where a party of zouaves had just missed capturing
him. Capital news! Lapoulle laughed over it as if he would split his
sides, while Chouteau and the others, without expressing the faintest
doubt, chuckled at the idea that soon they would be picking up
Prussians as boys pick up sparrows in a field after a hail-storm. But
they laughed loudest at old Bismarck's accident; oh! the zouaves and
the turcos, they were the boys for one's money! It was said that the
Germans were in an ecstasy of fear and rage, declaring that it was
unworthy of a nation that claimed to be civilized to employ such
heathen savages in its armies. Although they had been decimated at
Froeschwiller, the foreign troops seemed to have a good deal of life
left in them.

It was just striking six from the steeple of the little church of
Dontrien when Loubet shouted:

"Come to supper!"

The squad lost no time in seating themselves in a circle. At the very
last moment Loubet had succeeded in getting some vegetables from a
peasant who lived hard by. That made the crowning glory of the feast:
a soup perfumed with carrots and onions, that went down the throat
soft as velvet--what could they have desired more? The spoons rattled
merrily in the little wooden bowls. Then it devolved on Jean, who
always served the portions, to distribute the beef, and it behooved
him that day to do it with the strictest impartiality, for hungry eyes
were watching him and there would have been a growl had anyone
received a larger piece than his neighbors. They concluded by licking
the porringers, and were smeared with soup up to their eyes.