He woke Lothon, who still slept, as they came nearer to the town. Soon they would find themselves confronted by the 4th Regiment of artillery, and the situation was sufficiently serious for them to face it with an attention fully wide awake. The gate was open, and the two young fellows went straight to the guard-house overlooking the gate. Lothon, with his black bandage over his eye and his hat placed over one ear on account of his wound, looked ten years older than he really was; moreover, his sword of the time of François I. aged him by another three centuries. Charras, who had been discharged from the École polytechnique four months previously, had allowed his moustache to grow since (this would not have been allowed at the École); with his borrowed coat too long and too large for him, his policeman's sword hung round him by a shoulder-belt instead of a proper sword-belt, his trousers all covered with the blood of a Swiss soldier--who, badly injured, had thrown himself into Charras's arms to prevent being despatched completely--Charras looked far more like a bandit than an honest man. But indeed to practised eyes neither of them looked like a student of the École polytechnique. However, all went well so long as they remained in the carriage. They had lowered the hood, and the soldiers on guard could see Lothon's tricoloured cockade, and the bunch of three-coloured ribbons which Charras had exchanged for the sleeves of the Swiss, a decoration all very well in Paris, but too eccentric for the provinces. The magic colours produced their usual effect: the sentinel presented arms, and the quarter-master who answered the summons addressed Lothon as _mon officier._ "Well!" said Charras to Lothon, "so far things don't seem to be going badly." "Yes," said Lothon, "but it is with the colonel we shall have to deal...." "Ah! by Jove! then we shall see," said Charras. "You are going to try and be very eloquent, I hope?" "Rather! Hurrah for Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, the Grand Army and the devil and his horns! I cannot help touching him, unless his heart be encircled with three layers of steel, as Horace says." "And suppose it is?" "In that case.... Ah! I don't know! But then ... Oh, hang it all, man, you worry me with all your 'ifs'!" "Never mind. Just answer that question: suppose he isn't touched?" "Well! Shan't we still have the Bourget post-master's spring crucifixes to fall back on? We will play on them. Upon my word and honour, anybody would think you did not know the air!" "Of course, I do!" "If so, why are you quibbling?" "I wished to know if you had really decided on anything." "Oh! I say, what humbug!"