THE FIRST: It were good for a bandage had he boils on his neck. THE SECOND: Another plotting courtier! ANOTHER CADET: His uncle's own nephew! CARBON: For all that--a Gascon. THE FIRST: Ay, false Gascon!. . .trust him not. . . Gascons should ever be crack-brained. . . Naught more dangerous than a rational Gascon. LE BRET: How pale he is! ANOTHER: Oh! he is hungry, just like us poor devils; but under his cuirass, with its fine gilt nails, his stomach-ache glitters brave in the sun. CYRANO (hurriedly): Let us not seem to suffer either! Out with your cards, pipes, and dice. . . (All begin spreading out the games on the drums, the stools, the ground, and on their cloaks, and light long pipes): And I shall read Descartes. (He walks up and down, reading a little book which he has drawn from his pocket. Tableau. Enter De Guiche. All appear absorbed and happy. He is very pale. He goes up to Carbon.) Scene 4.IV. The same. De Guiche. DE GUICHE (to Carbon): Good-day! (They examine each other. Aside, with satisfaction): He's green. CARBON (aside): He has nothing left but eyes. DE GUICHE (looking at the cadets): Here are the rebels! Ay, Sirs, on all sides I hear that in your ranks you scoff at me; That the Cadets, these loutish, mountain-bred, Poor country squires, and barons of Perigord, Scarce find for me--their Colonel--a disdain Sufficient! call me plotter, wily courtier! It does not please their mightiness to see A point-lace collar on my steel cuirass,-- And they enrage, because a man, in sooth, May be no ragged-robin, yet a Gascon! (Silence. All smoke and play): Shall I command your Captain punish you? No. CARBON: I am free, moreover,--will not punish-- DE GUICHE: Ah! CARBON: I have paid my company--'tis mine. I bow but to headquarters. DE GUICHE: So?--in faith! That will suffice. (Addressing himself to the cadets): I can despise your taunts 'Tis well known how I bear me in the war; At Bapaume, yesterday, they saw the rage With which I beat back the Count of Bucquoi; Assembling my own men, I fell on his, And charged three separate times! CYRANO (without lifting his eyes from his book): And your white scarf? DE GUICHE (surprised and gratified): You know that detail?. . .Troth! It happened thus: While caracoling to recall the troops For the third charge, a band of fugitives Bore me with them, close by the hostile ranks: I was in peril--capture, sudden death!-- When I thought of the good expedient To loosen and let fall the scarf which told My military rank; thus I contrived --Without attention waked--to leave the foes, And suddenly returning, reinforced With my own men, to scatter them! And now, --What say you, Sir? (The cadets pretend not to be listening, but the cards and the dice-boxes remain suspended in their hands, the smoke of their pipes in their cheeks. They wait.)