At bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that Mr. The
Englishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Theophile should be so
devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's shop. In an unlucky
moment he had chanced to say to himself, "Why, confound the fellow, he is
not her father!" There was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into
him suddenly, and put him in a worse mood. So he had National
Participled the unconscious Corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had
made up his mind to think no more about such a mountebank.

But it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. If he had
known the most delicate fibres of the Englishman's mind, instead of
knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been the most obstinate
Corporal in the Grand Army of France, instead of being the most obliging,
he could not have planted himself with more determined immovability plump
in the midst of all the Englishman's thoughts. Not only so, but he
seemed to be always in his view. Mr. The Englishman had but to look out
of window, to look upon the Corporal with little Bebelle. He had but to
go for a walk, and there was the Corporal walking with Bebelle. He had
but to come home again, disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle were at
home before him. If he looked out at his back windows early in the
morning, the Corporal was in the Barber's back yard, washing and dressing
and brushing Bebelle. If he took refuge at his front windows, the
Corporal brought his breakfast out into the Place, and shared it there
with Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle. Never Corporal
without Bebelle. Never Bebelle without Corporal.

Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French language as
a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. It is with
languages as with people,--when you only know them by sight, you are apt