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don’t know what I want, Grandpère.’
    ‘No - not yet - how should you, you silly midget? But when you’re a man - ah! I tell you, living is a great game. Don’t let people do you in. You be the one to win, always, always.’
    ‘Something for nothing - something for nothing,’ sang Julius.
    ‘Go on, laugh at me, you miserable chicken. One day you’ll stretch yourself and wink an eye at the sky, and you’ll do someone down for a hundred sous, and you’ll pocket the money and walk out and have a woman. That’s life, Julius - and you can tap your nose and say, “Ha! - Ha! - Grandpère Blançard, he knew me, he understood.”’
    ‘Shall I do that, shall I then?’ laughed the boy. And Grandpère cracked his whip once more, and threw back his head.
    ‘C’est là qu’est l’plan de Trochu,
Plan, plan, plan, plan, plan,
Mon Dieu! quel beau plan!
C’est là qu’est l’plan de Trochu:
Grâce à lui rien n’est perdu!’
    ‘When you are sixty-five, will you have lived as fully as Jean Blançard? I wonder, my little son, with your dark eyes and your white Jew face, where will you be, what will you have done?’
    ‘Give me the whip. Let me crack the whip too.’
    Julius flicked the reins, the horse trotted fast along the high road, and Grandpère sat back with his arms folded, smoking his pipe.
    When they came over the brow of the hill and turned to the left down the road to Nanterre they saw a little white cloud of dust far ahead, the road dust that is made by the hoofs of many horses, or the tramping of many feet. It was not the ordinary surface dust raised by a rumbling cart. There was a sound, too, a distant murmur - the movement of people blocked in a mass, foreign, queer. Grandpère flushed, his eyes narrowed, and he swore under his breath.
    ‘What is it?’ said Julius, but not waiting for an answer he gave the reins to Grandpère, and he knew.
    Jean Blançard backed the cart and turned his horse round in the direction of Puteaux once more. ‘If they have seen us,’ he began, but he did not finish his sentence, he cracked his whip on the back of the horse and no longer in the air. The cart jolted over the ruts, flinging them both from side to side. The old horse galloped, his ears laid back. Julius kept looking back over his shoulder.
    ‘They’re coming, Grandpère,’ he said.
    The cloud of dust was drawing nearer, he could see soldiers on horseback, and the leader was shouting out something, waving his arm in the air.
    Jean Blançard chuckled. ‘Go on, my beauty, go on,’ he cried, and he handed the reins to Julius. ‘Drive straight, keep in the middle of the road - don’t look to the right or left.’ The boy obeyed.
    ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘I’m going to have a shot at them,’ said Grandpère, and he turned in his seat and reached for the old gun in the back of the cart.
    The sound of the clattering hoofs drew nearer, there was shouting behind them, the movement of men, and a voice calling loudly: ‘Halte - Halte.’
    ‘Drive, my darling, drive like the devil,’ laughed Grandpère, and he raised his old musket to his shoulder and fired. The staggering report frightened the horse, caring nothing for the light hands of Julius on the reins he took the bit firmly between his teeth and bolted.
    The cart rocked, pulled first one side then the other, by the terrified, maddened animal.
    ‘Take no notice of me, little fool, keep in the middle of the road,’ said Grandpère, and he lifted his musket and fired again.
    ‘Got him - the stinking vandal, got him!’ he shouted, and now there came the sound of another shot, from behind, from further away, and the clattering hoofs coming nearer, nearer, and Julius looked at Grandpère, and saw blood coming from his eye, running down his cheek.
    ‘You’re hurt,’ whispered Julius, and he felt a cold shiver go through him and began to cry.
    ‘Drive, you silly idiot - get home, get back to Puteaux,’ said Grandpère, and there came