"Is it good, my friends?" The soldier, abashed in his turn by this
alien and unusual visitation, grunts, giggles, and reddens, and the
gentleman says, "He, he!" Then, with a slight motion of the head,
he withdraws backwards.

The assemblage, with its neutral shades of civilian cloth and its
sprinkling of bright military hues--like geraniums and hortensias in
the dark soil of a flowerbed--oscillates, then passes, and moves off
the opposite way it came. One of the officers was heard to say, "We
have yet much to see, messieurs les journalistes."

When the radiant spectacle has faded away, we look at each other.
Those who had fled into the funk-holes now gradually and head first
disinter themselves. The group recovers itself and shrugs its
shoulders.

"They're journalists," says Tirette.

"Journalists?"

"Why, yes, the individuals that lay the newspapers. You don't seem
to catch on, fathead. Newspapers must have chaps to write 'em."

"Then it's those that stuff up our craniums?" says Marthereau.

Barque assumes a shrill treble, and pretending that he has a
newspaper in front of his nose, recites--"'The Crown Prince is mad,
after having been killed at the beginning of the campaign, and
meanwhile he has all the diseases you can name. William will die