was at Froeschwiller, where it was warm enough, I can tell you. The
comrade, here, belongs in the 1st corps; he was at Wissembourg,
another beastly hole."

They told their story, how they had been swept away in the general
panic, had crawled into a ditch half-dead with fatigue and hunger,
each of them slightly wounded, and since then had been dragging
themselves along in the rear of the army, compelled to lie over in
towns when the fever-fits came on, until at last they had reached the
camp and were on the lookout to find their regiments.

Maurice, who had a piece of Gruyere before him, noticed the hungry
eyes fixed on his plate.

"Hi there, mademoiselle! bring some more cheese, will you--and bread
and wine. You will join me, won't you, comrades? It is my treat.
Here's to your good health!"

They drew their chairs up to the table, only too delighted with the
invitation. Their entertainer watched them as they attacked the food,
and a thrill of pity ran through him as he beheld their sorry plight,
dirty, ragged, arms gone, their sole attire a pair of red trousers and
the capote, kept in place by bits of twine and so patched and pieced
with shreds of vari-colored cloth that one would have taken them for
men who had been looting some battle-field and were wearing the spoil
they had gathered there.

"Ah! _foutre_, yes!" continued the taller of the two as he plied his
jaws, "it was no laughing matter there! You ought to have seen it,
--tell him how it was, Coutard."