They were splendid fellows--our friends the Zouaves--always gay, healthy, and well fed; they carried loads for us, drank for us, ate for us, baked for us, foraged for us, and built our huts for us, and all on the cheapest and most economical terms. But there were some few degenerate wretches who grumbled even among this _corps d'élite_. An officer commanding a fatigue party, who happened to fall in with a party of Zouaves engaged in a similar duty, brought them all off to the canteen to give them a dram after their day's labour. While he was in the tent a warrior with a splendid face for a grievance came in and joined in the conversation, and our friend, seeing he was not a private, but that he had a chatty talkative aspect, combined with an air of rank, began to talk of the privations to which the allied armies were exposed. This was evidently our ally's _champ de bataille_. He at once threw himself into an attitude which would have brought down the pit and galleries of the Porte St. Martin to a certainty, and, in a tone which no words can describe, working himself up by degrees to the grand climax, and attuning his body to every nice modulation of phrase and accent, he plunged into his proper woes. Our gallant friend had been expatiating on the various disagreeables of camp life in the Crimea in winter time: "C'est vrai!" quoth he, "mon ami! En effet, nous éprouvons beaucoup de misère!" The idea of any one suffering misery except himself seemed to the Zouave too preposterous not to be disposed of at once. "Mais, mon lieutenant," cried he, "regardez moi---- moi! pr-r-r-r-remier basson 3me Zouaves! élève du Conservatoire de Paris! après avoir sacrificé vingt ans de ma vie pour acquérir un talent--pour me--r-r-ren-dr-r-re agréable a la société--me voici! (with extended arms, and legs) me voici--forcé d'arracher du bois de la terre (with terrible earnestness and sense of indignity), pour me faire de la soupe!"