They needed to rest. War
was a fact, and now that it was a certainty, they felt no anxiety to get
further news. Remaining in the cafe proved impossible. In the hot and
smoky atmosphere, the occupants were singing and shouting and waving
tiny flags. All the battle hymns of the past and present were here
intoned in chorus, to an accompaniment of glasses and plates. The
rather cosmopolitan clientele was reviewing the European nations. All,
absolutely all, were going to enroll themselves on the side of France.
"Hurrah! . . . Hurrah!" . . . An old man and his wife were seated at a
table near the two friends. They were tenants, of an orderly, humdrum
walk in life, who perhaps in all their existence had never been awake at
such an hour. In the general enthusiasm they had come to the boulevards
"in order to see war a little closer." The foreign tongue used by his
neighbors gave the husband a lofty idea of their importance.
"Do you believe that England is going to join us?" . . .
Argensola knew as much about it as he, but he replied authoritatively,
"Of course she will. That's a sure thing!" The old man rose to his feet:
"Hurrah for England!" and he began chanting a forgotten patriotic song,
marking time with his arms in a spirited way, to the great admiration
of his old wife, and urging all to join in the chorus that very few were
able to follow.
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