The speaker was leaning against the open door of the cafe; a tall, lightly built man, dressed in a velvet shooting tunic, much the worse for wind and weather, a loose shirt, and jack-boots splashed and worn out.
"When we are at it, monsieur," returned the Chasseur.

"I only wish we had more." "Of course.

Are you in need of recruits ?" "They all want to come to us and to the Zouaves," smiled Chanrellon, surveying the figure of the one who addressed him, with a keen sense of its symmetry and its sinew.

"Still, a good sword brings its welcome.

Do you ask seriously, monsieur ?" The bearded Arabs smoking their long pipes, the little piou-piou drowning his mortification in some curacoa, the idlers reading the "Akbah" or the "Presse," the Chasseurs lounging over their drink, the ecarte players lost in their game, all looked up at the newcomer.