Faron joined us, the son of the professor at the Sorbonne. He himself was a barrister, thin, energetic, and impenetrable. He buried himself in his newspapers. Then Holveck small and witty. He had just started a bank, with a branch in New York. Ladmiraut, an old Normalien with a puffy face and thick, hanging lips, an erudite pedant and a simple soul who used to be the picked target for all the practical jokes. Big Denais, the finished type of the don't-care-a-blow-for-any-one shover. Fortin, who had taken a degree in history, a lecturer and public speaker, not long returned from Germany, and already in search of a public. It was a very lively scene. All meeting and recognising and calling to one another. "Helloa Miquel, is that you?" "What a nice surprise!" "No! it must be a put-up job!" They were all here, all going to fight. But with what will, I could not yet decide. Our train, the 7:16, was almost due. Laraque dragged me away towards the platform, out of breath and purple in the face, his hat and eye-glass on one side. He wiped his damp forehead and shiny nose. "Do you know what delayed me?" We did not listen to his story, he realised it, and cut it short. "And ... what about the old lot?" I mentioned some names and expressed my surprise at not seeing Boutet. "What! You haven't heard about it! Poor wretch! He's been at Berck, for the last six months." "Oh, I say ... that's the limit," said Laraque. He laughed, but I felt that it was only half in fun. Guillaumin continued: "I came across little Frémont outside." "Oh!" "He couldn't tear himself away from his wife." "What, Frémont married?" "Yes, rather, six weeks ago." Just think of that. The idea amused me. He had been the youngest in the platoon, enlisting at the age of eighteen, though he did not look more than sixteen. He was as beardless and fresh as a girl and scared at first by the round oaths in the barrack-room ... and now he was married! "What's his wife like?" "Also quite young. They're like two children! She wants to go to F---- with him." * * * * * The journey lasted just four hours. We had scrambled into one of the "commandeered" carriages which within a few days would take us on to the scene of action. We were gay with a gaiety in some cases spontaneous but for the most part, assented to, though neither forced nor painful. Magnificent inconsequence! And the delight of meeting again like schoolboys at the beginning of the October term. At certain moments we touched lightly upon some subject of serious discussion. England?... Oh yes! England!... Some facetious remark soon put an end to it. Holveck turned to Guillaumin: "You'll have to do away with your eye-glass." "Why?" "Because of the splinters ... if you get a bullet in your eye!"