Then, about eight o’clock in the morning, a voice came from the vent-hole “I want to speak to the French officer.”

Lavigne replied from the window, taking care not to put his head out too far: 

“Do you surrender?”

“I surrender.”

“Then put your rifles outside.”

A rifle immediately protruded from the hole, and fell into the snow, then another and another, until all were disposed of.  And the voice which had spoken before said: 

“I have no more.  Be quick!  I am drowned.”

“Stop pumping!” ordered the commandant.

And the pump handle hung motionless.

Then, having filled the kitchen with armed and waiting soldiers, he slowly raised the oaken trapdoor.

Four heads appeared, soaking wet, four fair heads with long, sandy hair, and one after another the six Germans emerged—­scared, shivering and dripping from head to foot.

They were seized and bound.  Then, as the French feared a surprise, they set off at once in two convoys, one in charge of the prisoners, and the other conducting Maloison on a mattress borne on poles.

They made a triumphal entry into Rethel.

Monsieur Lavigne was decorated as a reward for having captured a Prussian advance guard, and the fat baker received the military medal for wounds received at the hands of the enemy.

TWO LITTLE SOLDIERS

Every Sunday, as soon as they were free, the little soldiers would go for a walk.  They turned to the right on leaving the barracks, crossed Courbevoie with rapid strides, as though on a forced march; then, as the houses grew scarcer, they slowed down and followed the dusty road which leads to Bezons.

They were small and thin, lost in their ill-fitting capes, too large and too long, whose sleeves covered their hands; their ample red trousers fell in folds around their ankles.  Under the high, stiff shako one could just barely perceive two thin, hollow-cheeked Breton faces, with their calm, naive blue eyes.  They never spoke during their journey, going straight before them, the same idea in each one’s mind taking the place of conversation.  For at the entrance of the little forest of Champioux they had found a spot which reminded them of home, and they did not feel happy anywhere else.

At the crossing of the Colombes and Chatou roads, when they arrived under the trees, they would take off their heavy, oppressive headgear and wipe their foreheads.

They always stopped for a while on the bridge at Bezons, and looked at the Seine.  They stood there several minutes, bending over the railing, watching the white sails, which perhaps reminded them of their home, and of the fishing smacks leaving for the open.

As soon as they had crossed the Seine, they would purchase provisions at the delicatessen, the baker’s, and the wine merchant’s.  A piece of bologna, four cents’ worth of bread, and a quart of wine, made up the luncheon which they carried away, wrapped up in their handkerchiefs.  But as soon as they were out of the village their gait would slacken and they would begin to talk.