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Updated: June 17, 2025
"It is my mother and Duclosse the mealman." Valmond recognised the fat, wheezy tones of Duclosse Sergeant Duclosse. He released her, and she caught up the candle. "What can you do?" she whispered. "I will wait here. I must not go down," he replied. "It would mean ruin." Ruin! ruin! Was she face to face with ruin already, she who, two minutes ago, was as safe and happy as a young bird in its nest?
"It is my mother and Duclosse the mealman." Valmond recognised the fat, wheezy tones of Duclosse Sergeant Duclosse. He released her, and she caught up the candle. "What can you do?" she whispered. "I will wait here. I must not go down," he replied. "It would mean ruin." Ruin! ruin! Was she face to face with ruin already, she who, two minutes ago, was as safe and happy as a young bird in its nest?
"If he has sense, I'll make a captain of him," remarked Lagroin consequentially. "You shall beat him into a captain on his own anvil," rejoined the little man. They entered the shop. Lajeunesse was leaning on his bellows, laughing, and holding an iron in the spitting fire; Muroc was seated on the edge of the cooling tub; and Duclosse was resting on a bag of his excellent meal.
Dirt don't stick to you as to me and the meal man. Duclosse there used to look like a pie when the meal and sweat dried on him. When we reach Paris, and His Excellency gets his own, I'll take to charcoal again; I'll fill the palace cellars. That suits me better than chalk and washing every day." "Do you think we'll ever get to Paris?" asked the mealman, cocking his head seriously.
The picture was so ludicrous that Pomfrette laughed with a devilish humour, and flinging the pitcher at the bag, he walked away towards his own house. Duclosse, pale and frightened, stepped from among the fragments of crockery, and with backward glances towards Pomfrette joined his comrade.
"He's never had but two ideas in his nut-meal and Elise; let him go." The mealman was soon lost to view, unheeding the challenge that rang after him. Lagroin had seen the fugitive from a distance, and came down, inquiring. When he was told he swore that Duclosse should suffer divers punishments. "A pretty kind of officer!" he cried in a fury. "Damn it, is there another man in my army would do it?"
He heard the sound of a drum in the distance. The gloom and suspense of the night just passed went from him, and into the sunshine he sang: "Oh, grand to the war he goes, O gai, vive le roi!" Not long afterwards he entered the encampment. Around one fire, cooking their breakfasts, were Muroc the charcoalman, Duclosse the mealman, and Garotte the lime-burner. They all were in good spirits.
He could see the fat, wheezy Duclosse hesitate, but the arid, alert Garotte had determination in every motion and look. They came nearer; they were about to pass; there was no sign. Pomfrette stopped short. "Good-day, lime-burner; good-day, Duclosse," he said, looking straight at them. Garotte made no reply, but walked straight on. Pomfrette stepped swiftly in front of the mealman.
"Tell her the highest bidder on earth could not buy one of the kisses she gave me when she was five and I was twenty." Then he shook hands with them all and went into the next room. "Why did he drop his glass?" asked Gingras the shoemaker. "That's the way of the aristocrats when it's the damnedest toast that ever was," said Duclosse the mealman. "Eh, Lajeunesse, that's so, isn't it?"
"Lime-burner," he said, sitting down on the bag of meal, and mechanically twisting tight the loose, leaking corner, "the devil's in that leper." "He was a good enough fellow once," answered Garotte, watching Pomfrette. "I drank with him at five o'clock yesterday," said Duclosse philosophically. "He was fit for any company then; now he's fit for none." Garotte looked wise.
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