324 The Hunting IVasps 



fetches out his pipe, fills it methodically with 

 a moistened thumb and smokes it solemnly. 

 He has been thinking of it for many a long hour ; 

 but he has abstained, for tobacco is expensive. 

 The privation has doubled the charm ; and not 

 a puff, recurring at regular intervals, is wasted. 



Meanwhile, we start talking. Favier is, in 

 his fashion, one of those bards of old who were 

 given the best seat at the hearth, for the sake 

 of their tales ; only, my story-teller was 

 formed in the barrack-room. No matter : the 

 whole household, large and small, listen to him 

 with interest ; though his speech is full of 

 vivid images, it is always decent. It would be 

 a great disappointment to us if he did not 

 come, when his work was done, to take his ease 

 in the chimney-corner. 



What does he talk about to make him so 

 popular ? He tells us what he saw of the 

 coup iV&tat to which we owe the hated Empire ; 

 he talks of the brandy served out and of the 

 firing into the mob. He — so he assures me — 

 always aimed at the wall ; and I accept his 

 word for it, so distressed does he appear to 

 me and so ashamed of having taken a hand, 

 however innocent, in that felon's game. 



He tells us of his watches in the trenches 

 before Sebastopol ; he speaks of his sudden 

 terror when, at night, all alone on outpost 



