the story here told.

Two days later, on Monday morning, as they returned to Paris, the two
friends looked again at Bicetre, and Derville proposed that they
should call on Colonel Chabert. Halfway up the avenue they found the
old man sitting on the trunk of a felled tree. With his stick in one
hand, he was amusing himself with drawing lines in the sand. On
looking at him narrowly, they perceived that he had been breakfasting
elsewhere than at Bicetre.

"Good-morning, Colonel Chabert," said Derville.

"Not Chabert! not Chabert! My name is Hyacinthe," replied the veteran.
"I am no longer a man, I am No. 164, Room 7," he added, looking at
Derville with timid anxiety, the fear of an old man and a child.--"Are
you going to visit the man condemned to death?" he asked after a
moment's silence. "He is not married! He is very lucky!"

"Poor fellow!" said Godeschal. "Would you like something to buy
snuff?"

With all the simplicity of a street Arab, the Colonel eagerly held out
his hand to the two strangers, who each gave him a twenty-franc piece;
he thanked them with a puzzled look, saying:

"Brave troopers!"

He ported arms, pretended to take aim at them, and shouted with a
smile: