"Nothing," said Paragot. "The _bon Dieu_ has done everything. He has
allowed me to be a soldier of France in my old age."
And Colonel Girault told me that he asked for news of the little
Asticot--a painter who ought by now to be famous. Paragot replied:
"He is over there, killing Boches for his old master."
Do you remember Paul Savelli, the Fortunate Youth? He lived to see his
dream of a great, awakened England come true. He fell leading his men
on a glorious day. His Princess wears on her nurse's uniform the
Victoria Cross which he had earned in that last heroic charge, but did
not live to wear. And she walks serene and gracious, teaching proud
women how to mourn.
What of Quixtus? He sacrificed his leisure to the task of sitting in a
dim room of the Foreign Office for ten hours a day in front of masses
of German publications, and scheduling with his scientific method and
accuracy the German lies. Clementina saw him only on Sundays. She
turned her beautiful house on the river into a maternity home for
soldiers' wives. Tommy, the graceless, when last home on leave, said
that she was capable of murdering the mothers so as to collar all the
babies for herself. And Clementina smiled as though acknowledging a
compliment. "Once every few years you are quite intelligent, Tommy,"
she replied.
I have heard, too, that Simon, who jested so with life, and Lola of the
maimed face, went out to a Serbian hospital, and together won through
the horror of the retreat. They are still out there, sharing in
Serbia's victory, and the work of Serbia's reconstruction.
In the early days of the war, in Regent Street, I was vehemently
accosted by a little man wearing the uniform of a French captain. He
had bright eyes, and a clean shaven chin which for the moment perplexed
me, and a swaggering moustache.
"Just over for a few hours to see the wife and little Jean."
"But," said I, "what are you doing in this kit? You went out as a
broken-down Territorial."
"_Mon cher ami_," he cried, straddling across the pavement to the
obstruction of traffic, and regarding me mirthfully, "it is the
greatest farce on the world. Imagine me! I, a broken-down
Territorial, as you call me, bearded a lion of a General of Division in
his den--and I came out a Captain. Come into the Café Royal and I'll
tell you all about it."
His story I cannot set down here, but it is not the least amazing of
the joyous adventures of my friend Aristide Pujol.
What Doggie and Jeanne did in the war, my gentle readers know. Their
first child was born on the glorious morning of November 11, 1918, amid
the pealing of bells and shouts of rejoicing. When Doggie crept into
the Sacred Room of Wonderment, he found the babe wrapped up in the
Union Jack and the Tricolour. "There's only one name for him,"
whispered Jeanne with streaming eyes, "Victor!"
To leave fantasy for the brutal fact. You may say these friends of
mine are but shadows. It is true. But shadows are not cast by
nothingness. These friends must live substantially and corporeally,
although in the flesh I have never met them. Some strange and
unguessed sun has cast their shadows across my path. I _know_ that
somewhere or the other they have their actual habitation, and I know
that they have done the things I have above recounted. These shadows
of things unseen are real. In fable lies essential truth. These
shadows that now pass quivering before my eyes have behind them great,
pulsating embodiments of men and women, in England and France, who have
given up their lives to the great work which is to cleanse the foulness
of the Central Empires of Europe, regenerate humanity, and bring
Freedom to God's beautiful earth.