This fact did not alter Jacques' friendliness towards Zeiss. He knew him to be mean and looked on his meanness more in the light of a humorous sort of infirmity than anything else. Zeiss was his friend--and that was enough. Zeiss wore gold earrings. Things quite inconspicuous yet all the same objects of jest among his friends. The only other man in the regiment so adorned was an Italian named Bretano who had once been a Neapolitan fisherman. No one noticed them in the case of Bretano, but Zeiss was a German and that made all the difference. One day Jacques received a call to the hospital, where a man of his company, Pelletan by name, lay dying. Pelletan had developed rapid consumption as a result of his life in the Legion acting on an hereditary tendency to the disease. Jacques had been kind to him. This scoundrel of a Jacques had one great quality: he was a man. A bad man, but still a man. Cruel as death to a slacker, his instinct told him that when Pelletan fell out on a march, or when his accoutrements were not absolutely spick and span, the fault was not in the soul of Pelletan but in his body. It was he who had marched Pelletan off to the doctor and he stood before him now, looking down on him and asking what he wanted. "You see, it's this way, corporal," said the dying man. "By yesterday morning's post I received a money order for six hundred francs. It seems that my father died last month. He had a little vineyard down there by Tarascon, and when everything was sold up and settled six hundred francs was all that was left of his property. I have no mother, brother, sister, or aunt--so you see----" His breath failed him for a moment. Then he went on: "You see, I have no one to leave the money to. I had the order changed last night and they got me gold at the Crédit Lyonnais for the notes. I'm near done out--and the money is yours." He put a thin and claw-like hand under his pillow and produced one of the little paper bags of the Crédit Lyonnais. It chinked as he handled it. Then he turned the money out on the quilt. There was a screen round the bed so that no one saw what was going forward, and a beam of sunlight through the high window lit the thirty gold coins as Pelletan played with them lovingly, whilst Jacques stood fascinated by the sight. "You will take them?" "Oh, ay," said Jacques. "I'll take them right enough if you have no one better to give them to. Money is money, and there's no use throwing it away." Pelletan called out for the hospital orderly, and the man came. "I've got some money here," said he, holding up the bag in which he had replaced the coins. "It's the money you got me yesterday for that order. I'm just off the hooks as you very well know and I have no one to give the stuff to except my friend here. He has used me well and I give it to him. You are witness." "Yes," replied the man.