"I saw a monkey just now; I must rub up my gun!" He could not be
solemn; not he. The thought of an opportunity to get even with
Hamilton was like wine in his blood.
If you had seen those hardy and sinewy Frenchmen gliding in the
dusk of evening from cottage to cottage, passing the word that the
Americans had arrived, saying airy things and pinching one another
as they met and hurried on, you would have thought something very
amusing and wholly jocund was in preparation for the people of
Vincennes.
There was a current belief in the town that Gaspard Roussillon
never missed a good thing and always somehow got the lion's share.
He went out with the ebb to return on the flood. Nobody was
surprised, therefore, when he suddenly appeared in the midst of
his friends, armed to the teeth and emotionally warlike to suit
the occasion. Of course he took charge of everybody and
everything. You could have heard him whisper a bowshot away.
"Taisons!" he hissed, whenever he met an acquaintance. "We will
surprise the fort and scalp the whole garrison. Aux armes! les
Americains viennent d'arriver!"
At his own house he knocked and called in vain. He shook the door
violently; for he was thinking of the stores under the floor, of
the grimy bottles, of the fragrant Bordeaux--ah, his throat, how
it throbbed! But where was Madame Roussillon? Where was Alice?
"Jean! Jean!" he cried, forgetting all precaution, "come here, you
scamp, and let me in this minute!"
A profoundly impressive silence gave him to understand that his
home was deserted.
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