"Because he knows boxing."

"Because he is so quiet, and blazes like the devil underneath."

Under which mass of overwhelming proofs of nationality the Amie du
Drapeau gave in.

"Yes, like enough. Besides, the other one is English. One of the
Chasseurs d'Afrique tells me that the other one waits on him like a
slave when he can--cleans his harness, litters his horse, saves him all
the hard work, when he can do it without being found out. Where did they
come from?"

"They will never tell."

Cigarette tossed her nonchalant head, with a pout of her cherry lips,
and a slang oath.

"Paf!--they will tell it to me!"

"Thou mayest make a lion tame, a vulture leave blood, a drum beat its
own rataplan, a dead man fire a musket; but thou wilt never make an
Englishman speak when he is bent to be silent."

Cigarette launched a choice missile of barrack slang and an array
of metaphors, which their propounder thought stupendous in their
brilliancy.

"When you stole your geese, you did but take your brethren home!
Englishmen are but men. Put the wine in their head, make them whirl in
a waltz, promise them a kiss, and one turns such brains as they have
inside out, as a piou-piou turns a dead soldier's wallet. When a woman
is handsome, she is never denied. He shall tell me where he comes from.
I doubt that it is from England! See here--why not! first, he never
says God-damn; second, he don't eat his meat raw; third, he speaks very
soft; fourth, he waltzes so light, so light! fifth, he never grumbles in
his throat like an angry bear; sixth, there is no fog in him. How can he
be English with all that?"

"There are English, and English," said the philosophic Tata, who piqued
himself on being serenely cosmopolitan.

Cigarette blew a contemptuous puff of smoke.

"There was never one yet that did not growl! Pauvres diables! If they
don't use their tusks, they sit and sulk!--an Englishman is always
boxing or grumbling--the two make up his life."

Which view of Anglo-rabies she had derived from a profound study of
various vaudevilles, in which the traditional God-damn was pre-eminent
in his usual hues; and having delivered it, she sprang down from her
wall, strapped on her little barrel, nodded to her gros bebees, where
they lounged full-length in the shadow of the stone wall, and left them
to resume their game at Boc, while she started on her way, as swift and
as light as a chamois, singing, with gay, ringing emphasis that echo