“Oh, what a head for a soldier!” cried some wag in the crowd.  “Yes,” screamed another, “he’ll make the Russians run.”  “Have you chosen your regiment yet?” barked a third.  “Why, of course!” yelped a fourth:  “he is to be fife-player in the second battalion of the pope’s horse-beadles.”

And amid a shower of jokes equally witty No. 17 came down, and a second name was called.  After him came a third, and then a fourth, and so on, all equally unlucky; and no wonder, since all the numbers up to one hundred were losing ones.  There were great differences in the way in which the youths bore their discomfiture:  some went up crying to the urn and trembled as in an ague whilst it was rolling round; three stamped and sobbed like children when they had lost, and the crowd, ever charitable in its doings, threw about their ears by way of comfort a volley of epigrams which pricked them like so many wasps; others, on the contrary, went up laughing, and upon drawing a bad number stuck the card in their hats and came down bandying jokes with the mob as unconcernedly as though they had been only taking a pinch of snuff instead of selling seven long years of their lives.  Others, again, trying to imitate the latter, but in reality too miserable to do so with ease, only succeeded in making themselves ridiculous, drawing upon themselves an extra amount of squibs from the spectators; upon which, like young steers worried by mosquitoes, they would begin distributing kicks and blows right and left with most liberal profusion, to the no small disgust of the mayor and the immense amusement of the infantry captain, who laughed like an ox in a clover-field.

At last a boy went up and drew the number 109:  frantic cheers greeted this check to fortune, and the lucky fellow rushed down with such wild demonstrations of joy that it would have been no great folly to have mistaken him for a criminal just reprieved.

A few minutes after the commune of Henri Derblay was called up.  Henri himself was sixth on the roll.  His father’s face had become livid; his mother hung so heavily on my arm that I fancied at one moment she had fainted; Louise was as white as a sheet, and her lips, bloodless and cold, looked blue and frozen as ice.

“Courage, Henri!” I said:  “more than forty have drawn, and but one winning number has come out yet:  you will have at least nine good chances.”

“Henri Derblay, of the commune of N——­,” cried an official, and we all started as though a gun had been fired.  The moment had come:  a minute more and the doubt would become certainty.

“Courage, mother!” whispered the boy, stooping over Madeleine and repeating in a faltering tone the words I had just spoken to him.

The poor woman was speechless:  she tried to smile, but her face twitched as though in a convulsion.  “My child—­” she whispered, and stopped short.

“Henri Derblay!” cried the voice again, and the crowd around repeated the cry:  “Be quick, Derblay, they are waiting for you.”