prayers. There was a pious man for you! Couldn't he oblige him,
Chouteau, by interceding with God to give him a hundred thousand
francs or some such small trifle? But Pache, an insignificant little
fellow with a head running up to a point, who had come to them from
some hamlet in the wilds of Picardy, received the other's raillery
with the uncomplaining gentleness of a martyr. He was the butt of the
squad, he and Lapoulle, the colossal brute who had got his growth in
the marshes of the Sologne, so utterly ignorant of everything that on
the day of his joining the regiment he had asked his comrades to show
him the King. And although the terrible tidings of the disaster at
Froeschwiller had been known throughout the camp since early morning,
the four men laughed, joked, and went about their usual tasks with the
indifference of so many machines.

But there arose a murmur of pleased surprise. It was occasioned by
Jean, the corporal, coming back from the commissary's, accompanied by
Maurice, with a load of firewood. So, they were giving out wood at
last, the lack of which the night before had deprived the men of their
soup! Twelve hours behind time, only!

"Hurrah for the commissary!" shouted Chouteau.

"Never mind, so long as it is here," said Loubet. "Ah! won't I make
you a bully _pot-au-feu_!"

He was usually quite willing to take charge of the mess arrangements,
and no one was inclined to say him nay, for he cooked like an angel.
On those occasions, however, Lapoulle would be given the most
extraordinary commissions to execute.