"
The woman of the house, the man's wife, had been buzzing round like a
bee, droning out in an incoherent voice as she served the customers.
Now she came up to the master-fencer, looked at him in the face for a
second, and then looked at the bucket. The sweat oozed from her (p. 285)
face like water from a sponge.
"Hurry, and get the work done," she said to her husband, then she
turned to us. "You're keeping him from work," she stuttered, "you two,
chattering like parrots. Allez-vous en! Allez-vous en!"
We left the house of the potato-peeler and returned to our digging.
The women of France are indeed wonderful.
That evening Bill came up to me as I was sitting on the banquette. In
his hand was an English paper that I had just been reading and in his
eye was wrath.
"The 'ole geeser's fyce is in this 'ere thing again," he said
scornfully. "Blimy! it's like the bad weather, it's everywhere."
"Whose face do you refer to?" I asked my friend.
"This Jimace," was the answer and Bill pointed to the photo of a
well-known society lady who was shown in the act of escorting a
wounded soldier along a broad avenue of trees that tapered away to a
point where an English country mansion showed like a doll's house in
the distance. "Every pyper I open she's in it; if she's not makin'
socks for poor Tommies at the front, she's tyin' bandages on (p. 286)
wounded Tommies at 'ome."
"There's nothing wrong in that," I said, noting the sarcasm in Bill's
voice.
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