The latter, after having pronounced Flameche's funeral oration, had been shot in the leg during the encounter with the dragoons. The sergeant, on his part, had received a wound in the loins in the course of the first attack that the barricade had to sustain. "Zounds! How I suffer!" murmured the sergeant. "And what a thirst! My throat is on fire!" Father Bribri overheard the words, and seeing Gildas approach holding in one hand a bottle of wine and water, and in the other a basket with glasses, called out to him as if he were at an inn: "Waiter! This way, waiter! The old man here wants something to drink, if you please! He is thirsty!" Surprised and touched by the civility of his companion on the mattress, the sergeant said to him: "Thank you, my good old man; I may not decline, because I feel as if I would choke." Upon the summons of father Bribri, Gildas filled one of the glasses in his basket. He stooped down and handed it to the soldier. The latter essayed to rise, but failed, and said as he dropped back: "Zounds! I can not sit up. My loins are shattered." "Wait a second, sergeant," said father Bribri; "one of my legs is disabled, but my loins and arms are still sea-worthy. I shall give you a helping hand." The ragpicker helped the soldier to sit up, and supported him until he had emptied his glass. After that he gently helped him to lie down again. "Thanks, and pardon the trouble, my good old man," said the Municipalist. "At your service, sergeant." "Tell me, old boy--" "What is it, sergeant?" "Doesn't it strike you that this thing is rather droll?" "What, sergeant?" "Well, to think that two hours ago we were trying to shoot holes through each other, and now we are exchanging courtesies." "Don't mention it, sergeant! Shots are stupid things." "All the more when people have no ill-will for each other--" "Zounds! May the devil take me, sergeant, if I had any ill-will towards you! Nevertheless, for all I know, it was I who put the bullet in your loin--just as, without having the slightest ill feeling for me, you would have planted your bayonet in my bowels. Wherefore, I repeat it, it is a stupid thing for people who have no ill-will toward each other to come to blows." "That's the truth of it." "And, furthermore, were you particularly stuck upon Louis Philippe, sergeant?" "I? Little did I trouble my head about him! What I was after was to obtain my furlough, so that I could go to the country and plant my cabbages. That's what I was after. And you, old boy, what were you after?" "I am after the Republic that will guarantee work, and will furnish bread to those who need it." "If that is so, old fellow, I am as much for the Republic as yourself, because I have a poor brother with a large family upon his hands, to whom to be out of work is like death. Ah! And was it for that that you fought, old fellow? By my honor, you were not so far out of the way. Long live the Republic!"