le way."

"But suppose they fired at us 'stead of at His Excellency?" asked the
mealman.

"Then, mealman, you'd settle your account for lightweights sooner than
you want."

Duclosse twisted his mouth dubiously. He was not sure how far his
enthusiasm would carry him. Muroc shook his shaggy head in mirth.

"Well, 'tis true we're getting off to France," said the lime-burner. "We
can drill as we travel, and there's plenty of us for a start."

"Morrow we go," said Lajeunesse. "The proclamation's to be out in an
hour, and you're all to be ready by ten o'clock in the morning. His
Excellency is to make a speech to us to-night; then the General--ah,
what a fine soldier, and eighty years old!--he's to give orders,
and make a speech also; and I'm to be colonel,"--he paused
dramatically,--"and you three are for captains; and you're to have five
new yellow buttons to your coats, like these." He drew out gold
coins and jingled them. Every man got to his feet, and Muroc let the
coffee-tin fall. "There's to be a grand review in the village this
afternoon. There's breakfast for you, my dears!"

Their exclamations were interrupted by Lajeunesse, who added: "And so my
Madelinette is to go to Paris, after all, and Monsieur Parpon is to see
that she starts right."

"Monsieur" Parpon was a new title for the dwarf. But the great comedy,
so well played, had justified it. "Oh, His Excellency 'll keep his
oath," said the mealman. "I'd take Elise Malboir's word about a man
for a million francs, was he prince or ditcher; and she says he's the
greatest man in the world. She knows."

"That reminds me," said Lajeunesse gloomily, "Elise has the black
fever."

The mealman's face seemed to petrify, his eyes stood out, the bread he
had in his teeth dropped, and he stared wildly at Lajeunesse. All were
occupied in watching the mealman, and they did not see the figure of a
girl approaching.

Muroc, dumfounded, spoke first. "Elise--the black fever!" he gasped,
thoroughly awed.

"She is better, she will live," said a voice behind Lajeunesse. It
was Madelinette, who had come to the camp early to cook her father's
breakfast.

Without a word, the mealman turned, pulled his clothes about him with a
jerk, and, pale and bewildered, started away at a run down the plateau.

"He's going to the village," said the charcoalman. "He hasn't leave.
That's court-martial!"

Lajeunesse shook his head knowingly. "He's never had but two ideas in
his nut-meal