ly, he could not foresee what actually happened. Thus it was a
shock to him. He learned that his son was wounded, and then followed
many long weeks while the boy lay in hospital, during which time many
kind-hearted Red Cross ladies wrote to Antoine, telling him to be of
brave heart and of good courage. And Antoine, being a rich man, in a
small hairdressing way, took quite large sums of money out of the bank
from time to time, and sent them to the Red Cross ladies, to buy for his
son whatever might be necessary to his recovery. He heard from the
hospital in the interior--for they were taking most of the wounded to
the interior, at that time, for fear of upsetting Paris by the sight of
them in the streets--that artificial legs were costly. Thus he steeled
himself to the fact that his son would be more hideously lame than he
himself. There was some further consultation about artificial arms,
rather vague, but Antoine was troubled. Then he learned that a
marvellous operation had been performed upon the boy, known as plastic
surgery, that is to say, the rebuilding, out of other parts of the body,
of certain features of the face that are missing. All this while he
heard nothing directly from the lad himself, and in every letter from
the Red Cross ladies, dictated to them, the boy begged that neither his
father nor his mother would make any attempt to visit him at the
hospital, in the interior, till he was ready.

Finally, the lad was "ready." He had been four or five months in
hospital, and the best surgeons of the country had done for him the best
they knew. They had not only saved his life, but, thanks to his father's
money, he had been fitted out with certain artificial aids to the human
body which would go far towards making life supportable. In fact, they
expressed themselves as extremely gratified with what they had been able
to do for the poor young man, nay, they were even proud of him. He was a
surgical triumph, and as such they were returning him to Paris, by such
and such a train, upon such and such a day. Antoine went to meet the
train.

In a little room back of the hairdressing shop, Antoine looked down upon
the surgical triumph. This triumph was his son. The two were pretty
well mixed up. A passion of love and a passion of furious resentment
filled the breast of the little hairdresser. Two very expensive, very
good artificial legs lay on the sofa beside the boy. They were nicely
jointed and had cost several hun