And the excitable Frenchman jumped from his seat and went through the pantomime of charging with the bayonet.

“You lost many men?”

“Thousands.  What matter? we have many more to come.  The Imperial Guard has landed, and the reserve, are at Constantinople.”

“Yes, and there are the ‘Sardines,’” said another pointing to the new uniform.

“Plenty of new arrivals.  M. Soyer, the great cook, landed yesterday.”

“What on earth brings him?”

“He is going to teach the troops to make omelettes and biscuit-soup.”

“We were ahead of him in that, I think,” said Hyde, winking at Anatole.

“He is with Miss Nightingale, you know, who has come out as head nurse.”

“Heaven bless her!”

“Well, for all the new arrivals, we don’t get on very fast with the siege.”

“Why don’t they go into the place, without all this shilly-shallying?” cried an impetuous Briton.  “We’d take the place—­we, the rank and file—­if the generals only would let us do the work alone.”

“They are a poor lot, the generals, I say.”

“Halt, there! not a word against Lord Raglan,” cried Hyde.

“He is so slow.”

“Yes, but he is uncommon sure.  Have you ever seen him in action?  I have.  He knows how to command:  so quiet and self-possessed.  Such a different man from the French generals, who always shout and swear and make such a confounded row.  What do you think of your generals, Anatole?”

“Canrobert is an imbecile; he never knows his own mind.”

“Well, we shan’t be troubled with him much longer,” said a fresh arrival.  “Canrobert has just resigned the chief command.”

“Impossible!” said Anatole, when the news was interpreted to him.

“It is perfectly true, I assure you,” replied the last speaker.  “I have just come from the English headquarters, and saw the new French commander-in-chief there.  Palliser, I think they call him.”

“Pelissier,” said the French sergeant, correcting him.  “That is good news.  A rare old dog of war that.  We shan’t wait long to attack if he has the ordering.”

“They say the Russian generals have changed lately.  Gortschakoff has succeeded Mentschikoff.”

“Confound those koffs!  They are worse than a cold in the head.”

“And just as difficult to get rid of.  I’d like to wring their necks, and every Russian’s at Sebastopol.”

“Mentschikoff could not have been a bad fellow, anyway.”

“How do you know that?”

“Why, one of our officers who was taken prisoner at Inkerman has just come back to camp.  I heard him say that while he was in Sebastopol he got a letter from his young woman at home.  She said she hoped he would take Mentschikoff prisoner, and send her home a button off his coat.”

“Well?”

“The letter was read by the Russian authorities before they gave it him, and some one told the general what the English girl had said.”