The artillerymen were already up, and were taking their coffee, when Maurice arrived and found that a quarrel had broken out between Adolphe, the front driver, and his chum Louis, the gunner. They had got on very well together, except with regard to messing, during the three years that they had chummed together--according to the system by which, in the French artillery, a driver and a gunner are coupled. Louis, who was very intelligent, and the better educated of the two, cheerfully accepted the state of dependence in which every mounted man keeps the footman his comrade, and he pitched the tent, performed the fatigue duties, and looked after the _soupe_, whilst Adolphe, with an air of superiority, simply attended to his two horses. At the same time, however, Louis, who was dark and thin and afflicted with an excessive appetite, revolted when his comrade, a tall fellow with bushy fair moustaches, presumed to help himself like a master. That morning, for instance, the quarrel had arisen through Louis accusing Adolphe of drinking all the coffee which he, Louis, had made. It became necessary to reconcile them. Every morning, immediately after the reveille, Honoré went to have a look at his gun, and saw that the night dew was carefully wiped from it in his presence, just as though it were a question of rubbing down some favourite horse, for fear lest it should catch cold. And he was standing there, like a father, watching the gun shine in the clear atmosphere of the dawn, when he recognised Maurice: 'Hallo!' he said; 'I knew that the 106th was near by. I received a letter from Remilly, yesterday, and I meant to have gone down to you. Let's go and drink a cup of white wine.' So that they might be alone together, he took him towards the little farmhouse plundered the day before, whose peasant owner, altogether incorrigible and still eager for gain, had now tapped a cask of white wine in view of playing the taverner. He served the liquor on a plank outside his door, at a charge of four _sous_ the glass, being assisted in the work by the man whom he had engaged three days previously, the colossal, fair-haired Alsatian. Honoré and Maurice were already chinking glasses, when the eyes of the former fell upon the so-called refugee. For an instant he scanned his face with an air of stupefaction. Then he swore a terrible oath: 'By the thunder of God! Goliath!' He sprang forward, wishing to seize the scamp by the throat, but the farmer, imagining that his house was about to be pillaged afresh, darted back and barricaded the door. There was a moment's confusion, and all the soldiers present rushed forward, whilst the infuriated quartermaster almost choked himself with shouting: 'Open! open! you cursed fool! The fellow's a spy; I tell you, he's a spy!'