I slyly opened the library-door, and, turning to the left, I made my way to the conservatory, and stationed myself directly behind you, near the door, in the folds of the curtain, and there I heard it all. I did even more than that: in coming away I snapped off a branch of camellia. What follows is merely the work of a reporter: if memory or skill is lacking, forgive me and I will do better another time. "No," said the youngest, looking at her pink satin slipper, "I mean the one with the decoration in his buttonhole: don't you see him? He is standing by the mantelpiece, by the side of the big bald man in a white waistcoat." "Why, the big bald man is not a colonel--no indeed. I know him very well: he comes to see papa. It's Mr. Thingamy--some queer name. After every visit of his we find two casters off the easy-chair. Mamma says he's clever, papa says he's not: as for me, I think he smells of pomade." "Where does he put his pomade? He has hardly three hairs on his head." "Yes, but they curl, my dear. I am sure he ought to wear a little crimson velvet cap with tassels. Dear me! how I do hate a man as fat as that! Papa, who is slender in comparison with this bear, seems to me a little--when he is shaving--Well, if it was not papa, I should like to plane him down a little." "But, girls, I don't mean the stout one: I mean the one by his side, with an aquiline nose and moustaches. There, he is taking an ice. He seems to be a lion. Now he's blowing his nose: he's Colonel C----." "Oh yes, I see. Dear me! how hard he blows his nose! Your colonel has a cold: one can hear him from here--ha! ha!" "There is nothing strange in his having a cold: he has just come from Africa: see how tanned he is. Well, my dear, he _is_ a lion." "Then he is an attache?" "Oh, how stupid you are! I said he is a lion because he fought like a tiger, and he--" "Then say he is a tiger, and have done with it." --(Shrugging her shoulders) "and that at the battle of Rapata--Ratapa--or Patara--I can't remember exactly what, but it was a frightful battle--where the Arabs bit the dust--That's it, word for word, as papa read it aloud the other day out of the paper." "Why did they bite the dust?" "Why, because they were so angry. You know when you are in a passion--Well, in this battle the colonel received a cannon-ball or bullet--I don't remember which--in his left shoulder, and they could not extract it, so he returned to France very ill." "How terrible those battles must be!" "It is the day after a battle that is terrible. Just think of it! They found this poor colonel under a mountain of dead men at the very moment the wild beasts were going to devour him like the missionary in the _Propagation of the Faith_. Being swallowed by a crocodile is indeed terrible."