n called upon the officer to witness that it was not his
fault. The crowd, who had not witnessed the accident, crowded round the
policeman, giving testimony to what they had not seen. The sobbing boy
was led into a chemist's. Still the people did not disperse. They
pressed round the cab, and began shouting to the disinterested officer.
The officer who cared not where the old horse had stepped. The officer
who continued to loll back against the shabby cushions, to look upward
at the sky, to remain indifferent to the taximeter, which skipped
briskly from eighty-five centimes to ninety-five centimes, and continued
ticking on. Women crowded round the cab, regarding its occupant. Was
this one who commanded their sons at the Front, who had therefore seen
so much, been through so much, that the sight of a little boy stamped
on meant nothing to him? Had he seen so much suffering _en gros_ that it
meant nothing to him _en detail_? Or was this his attitude to all
suffering? Was this the Nation's attitude to the suffering of their
sons? Or was this officer one who had never been to the Front, an
_embusque_, one of the protected ones, who occupied soft snaps in the
rear, safe places from which to draw their pay? The crowd increased
every minute. They speculated volubly. They surrounded the cab, voicing
their speculations. They finally became so unbearable that the officer's
boredom vanished. His annoyance became such, his impatience at the delay
became such that he slid down from the shabby cushions, and without
paying his fare, disappeared in the direction of the _Ministere de la
Guerre_.

* * * * *

_A Selection from the
Catalogue of_

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Complete Catalogue sent
on application

* * * * *

The Night Cometh

By

Paul Bourget

Translated by Frederic Lees

_12 deg. $1.35_

Perhaps the most important work of imagination yet written under the
influence of the war. A French military hospital is the scene of the
story, and its chief characters are a famous Paris surgeon and a young
wounded officer, whose fervent Catholic piety is in sharp contrast with
the doctor's philosophic materialis