-e.'

"'M-e.... _Merci, pays_.'

"And he continues, without deigning to reply to the _loustic_ who has
remarked our colloquy, and who calls to him:

"'He! Pitou, say to thy people that thou hast lost the umbrella of the
squad, and that they send thee a hundred sous to buy a new one with.'"

At ten o'clock the bugle sounds: "Lights out!" and the dormitory sinks
into darkness and slumber. "In the silence of the night, when sleep has
already dulled all the caserne, a sound as gentle as a caress comes from
outside, mysterious and far-away. The _clairon_ has transformed itself
into something soft and cradling, and modulates tenderly an old, old
song:

"_Do, do do, petit soldat,
Pense a ta bel', la plus belle des belles,
Do, do do, petit soldat,
Sois-lui fidele,
Si elle t'aime, aime-la._"

At two o'clock in the morning, a heavy step is heard on the stair, the
door of the room is pushed violently open, and a hoarse voice, without
any respect for the slumber of the others, calls out the name of the
unlucky "cook for the day." The latter gets out of bed, feels around for
his blouse and his sabots, and departs with an equal amount of
unnecessary noise. Outside, he finds the corporal commanding the
culinary department, with the keys of the store-house; between them,
they open the kitchen, light the fires, and prepare the morning meal,
first the soup and then the coffee,--five kilogrammes of the latter for
a battalion. When reveil sounds, the beverage is ready, the men of the
_corvee_ carry it up into the dormitory in great earthenware jugs, one
in each hand. If their iron-pegged shoes should happen to slip on the
ice or snow of the court-yard, not only would the unlucky bearer run a
strong chance of being frozen on one side as he fell, and scalded on the
other, but he would also have to face the wrath of some thirty hungry
warriors. This coffee is not _exquis_, but it is hot, and the men
receive a good allowance of it; if the corporal be good-natured, they
drink it sitting on their beds, and steeping their bread in it in the
inelegant fashion dear to all their compatriots.

Finally, when the conscript has become a soldier, mastered the
intricacies of the _Theorie_ and the details of the manual of arms,
learned the secret of keeping his accoutrements in parade order, taken
part in the interminable drills in the secrecy of the caserne that
prepare for the great ones in public, he