Well, here it is.

I belong to the League of Patriots." As they brighten still more, his eyes are like two live embers in the darkness, "Deroulede!" he cries; "that's the man--he's _my_ God!" Petrolus raises his voice and gesticulates; he makes great movements in the night at the vision of his idol, to whom his leanness and his long elastic arms give him some resemblance.

"He's for war; he's for Alsace-Lorraine, that's what he's for; and above all, he's for nothing else.

Ah, that's all there is to it! The Boches have got to disappear off the earth, else it'll be us.

Ah, when they talk politics to _me_, I ask 'em, 'Are you for Deroulede, yes or no ?' That's enough! I got my schooling any old how, and I know next to nothing but I reckon it's grand, only to think like that, and in the Reserves I'm adjutant[1]--almost an officer, monsieur, just a lamp-man as I am!" [Footnote 1: A non-com., approximately equivalent to regimental sergeant-major .-- Tr.] He tells me, almost in shouts and signs, because of the wind across the open, that his worship dates from a function at which Paul Deroulede had spoken to him.