concern is it of theirs? The Prussians are there all the same, aren't
they? and we are going to give them one of the old-fashioned hidings,
such as they won't forget in one while." Down below them in the thick
sea of fog the guns at Bazeilles were still pounding away, and he
extended his arms with a broad, sweeping gesture: "_Hein_! this is the
time that we've got them! We'll see them back home, and kick them
every step of the way!"

All the trials and troubles of the past were to him as if they had not
been, now that his ears were gladdened by the roar of the guns: the
delays and conflicting orders of the chiefs, the demoralization of the
troops, the stampede at Beaumont, the distress of the recent forced
retreat on Sedan--all were forgotten. Now that they were about to
fight at last, was not victory certain? He had learned nothing and
forgotten nothing; his blustering, boastful contempt of the enemy, his
entire ignorance of the new arts and appliances of war, his rooted
conviction that an old soldier of Africa, Italy, and the Crimea could
by no possibility be beaten, had suffered no change. It was really a
little too comical that a man at his age should take the back track
and begin at the beginning again!

All at once his lantern jaws parted and gave utterance to a loud
laugh. He was visited by one of those impulses of good-fellowship that
made his men swear by him, despite the roughness of the jobations that
he frequently bestowed on them.

"Look here, my children, in place of quarreling it will be a great
deal better to take a good nip all around. Come, I'm going to treat,
and you shall drink my health."