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Near the end of May, one of these occasions, always impatiently awaited on both sides, presented itself, and M. de Camors at midnight penetrated into the little garden of the old 'sous-officier'. At the moment when he turned the key in the gate of the enclosure, he thought he heard a slight sound behind him.
The boyish sous-officier looked pleasantly at the occupants of the car: "Have the complaisance to follow me rather slowly if you please," he said; wheeled his horse, and trotted eastward toward the roofs of a little hamlet visible among the trees of the green and rolling countryside.
They rarely remained long used to appear at the gate in small bands of four or five, with a sous-officier, who always asked to see either the proprietor or someone in authority. He said how many men and horses he wanted lodged and fed, and announced the arrival, a little later, of several officers to dine and sleep.
A more perfect representative of this mingled jealousy and hate could not be found than Paul Dupont, the sous-officier in command of this little party. He was a Breton, and carried the ruling trait of his province into the most minute feature of his conduct.
For a waiter to find himself waited upon was, he confided to me as the orderly brought in the soup, a peculiarly satisfying experience. Charles Lamb would have agreed with him. Has he not written that the ideal holiday is to watch another man doing your own job particularly if he does it badly? The sous-officier nearly wept with joy when, a moment later, the orderly upset the soup.
We've a good deal in common: we're all bad eggs, and we're none of us fit for our billets. Monsieur le Commandant, you were a sous-officier in Belgium who made Brussels too hot to hold you; you come out here, and you're sent to govern a district the size of Russia, which is a lot beyond your weight.
When the grade of sous-officier gave him authority over them, they obeyed him implicitly because they knew that his sympathies were with them at all times, and that he would be the last to check their gayety, or to punish their harmless indiscretions.
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