With a knife he drew a picture of the locale on the table cloth.

"Here I was riding on my sorrel, all my noble fellows behind, the fife and drums going as at Louisburg--that day! Martial ardour united to manliness and local pride--follow me?
Here we were, Red Ravine left, stump fences and waving fields of grain right.
From military point of view, bad position--ravine, stump fence, brave soldiers in the middle, food for powder--catch it ?--see ?" He emptied his glass, drew a long breath, and again began, the carving-knife cutting a rhetorical path before him.

"I was engaged upon the military problem--demonstration in force, no scouts ahead, no rearguard, ravine on the right, stump fence on the left, red coats, fife-and-drum band, concealed enemy--follow me?
Observant mind always sees problems everywhere--unresting military genius accustoms intelligence to all possible contingencies--'stand what I mean ?" The Seigneur took a pinch of snuff, and the Cure, whose mind was benevolent, listened with the gravest interest.
"At the juncture when, in my mind's eye, I saw my gallant fellows enfiladed with a terrible fire, caught in a trap, and I, despairing, spurring on to die at their head--have I your attention ?--just at that moment there appeared between the ravine and the road ahead a man.
He wore an eye-glass; he seemed an unconcerned spectator of our movements--so does the untrained, unthinking eye look out upon destiny! Not far away was a wagon, in it a man.

Wagon bisecting our course from a cross-road--" He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notary said: "Yes, yes, the concession road." "So, Messieurs.

There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band; there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet the engine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man driving--catch it?
The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at that instant strikes up 'The Chevalier Drew his Sabre'.