that colony of the Superannuated who had settled down in
this pleasant place to wearily drag out the end of their days.

Toward noon they could be seen strolling deliberately in groups of twos
or threes down the street, shortly to disappear into the wine-room,
where between twelve and one they assembled at the round table to
gossip. On the table stood pint bottles of sourish Moselle, over the
table floated a thick mist of cigar smoke, and through the mist came
voices, peevish, grating, discussing the latest event in the Army
Register.

The old colonel, too, was a regular patron of the wine-room, but he
never came at the hour of general assembly, but later, in the afternoon.

He was a man of lonely disposition. Rarely was he seen in the company of
others; his lodging was in the suburbs on the other side of the river,
and from the window of his room one could look out over a wide stretch
of meadow land which the river regularly inundated every spring, when it
overflowed its banks. Many a time have I passed by his lodging and seen
him standing at the window, his bloodshot eyes, rimmed with deep bags
beneath, thoughtfully gazing out toward the gray waste of water beyond
the embankment.

And now he sits there at the window of the wine-room and gazes out upon
the square, over whose surface the wind sweeps along in a whirl of dust.

But what is he looking at, I wonder?

The fat waiter, bored to death over his two silent fees, had his
attention already drawn toward the colonel's behavior; he stood in the
middle of the room, his hands clasped behind the tail of his coat, and
was gazing through the other window out on to the square.

Something must surely be going on there.

Quietly as possible, so as not to break the interest of the other two,
I rose from my seat. But there was really nothing to be seen. The square
was nearly empty; only in the center, under the great street lamps,
I noticed two schoolboys who were facing each other in threatening
attitude.

Could it be this, then, that so fixed the attention of the old colonel?

But having once begun, such is the nature of man, I could not withdraw
my attention before knowing whether this threat of a fight would really
swell to an outbreak. The boys had just come from afternoon school
session; they were still carrying their portfolios under their arms.
They may have been of equal age, but one was a head taller than the
other. This bigger one, a tall, lank, overgrown