The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-11-08
THE OLD TUNIC.

At the time when Twas clerk in the office
of the minister Of war had for a colleague
and fellow clerk one Jean Vidal, an old
non-commissioned officer who had lost a
left arm in the Italian campaign, but who
still had his right hand with which he ac-
complished marvellous feats with the pen,
in round hand. running hand and Gothic
hand, and executed with a single stroke of
the pen a small bird in the flourish to his
signature.
Vidal was worthy man, typical old
soldier, upright and pure. Although he
was hardly forty years old, and but few
gray hairs appeared in his pointed zouave
beard, yet we already called him at the
office. Pere Vidal, but with less familiarity
than respect, for we knew his life of honor
and devotion in his small cheap lodging in
the farthest part of Grenelle, where his
sister lived with him, q widow, with a long
string of children, and where he supposed
this little world upon his slender income,
that is to say, the payment for his cross,
his pension and bis clerkship-3,OOO francs
for five persons. Never mind. His frock
coats, with the empty left sleeve looped up
on the third button, were always brushed
as for a review by the inspector general,
and the red ribbon of his decoration, al
ways fresh, was so serious a thing to the
good man that he took it from his button
holewhenever he carried a package through
the streets, sometimes pair of boots from
Latour's, or q pair of trousers bought in
the morning at the Belle Jardiniere.
As l used to live then in the environs of
South Paris, ] frequently shaped my home
ward way so that | could 90 with Pere
Vidal, and l amused myself by getting
him to recount his campaigns as we walk
ed by the vicinity of the Ecole Militaire,
where at that time could be seen (it was
during the last years of the empire) the
snowy uniforms of the imperial guard,
fuglemen in green, lancers in white, and
the somber and magnificent officers of the
artillery in black and gold, a costume in
which it is quite worth while to go and be
killed. Sometimes in the hot summer
evenings / offered a glass of absinthe to
my companion, a luxury which poor Vidal
economically denied himself and we would
stop for half hour before an officers cafe
in the Avenue de la Mothe Piquet. On
such days the old sub" who had become
the most steady Of family men, and had
quite lost his habit Of gossiping, would
rise from the table with an heroic giddi-
ness in his head, and was sure OF hearing
for the rest of the way some good war story.
One evening" believe, God forgive me,
that Pere Vidal had taken two glasses of
absinthe-in making our way through the
miserable Boulevard de Grenelle, he stop
ped suddenly before the place of dealer
in second hand military clothes There
are good many of them in that quarter.
1t was a dingy, dirty shop. displaying in
the window some rusty pistols, wooden
bowls full of buttons, gilded epaulettes,
md in front were hung, among some mis-
7rable rags, several old coats of officers,
ruined and tattered by the sun and rain,
but which, still preserving the impress of
the shape and che breadth of the shoulders,
had something vaguely human in their APP
pearance. Vidal, graspIng my arm with
his only hand, and looking at me with
gaze that was not without suggestions of
Rbsinthe, lifted the stump of an arm to
point out one Of the coats, the tunic Of an
African officer with its skirt in a hun
dred plaits and triple braid of gold twist
ing into an eight on the shoulder.
Look at that" he said; that's the uni
form of my old corps, captains tunic."
Then, coming nearer TO examine the tat
tiers more closely, he read the number en-
graved on the buttons, and called out ex-
citedly:
1T is my regiment. 1t is the First zou-
avesI"
But suddenly Pere Vidal's hand, which
had already laid hold upon the old tunic,
remained fixed, his face darkened, his lips
trembled, and lowering his eyes he muir
INJURED in frightened way:
my Godl If it should be hisp'
Then, with a sudden gesture, he turned
the tunic round, and | could see in the
middle of the back a little round hole, the
hole of a bullet, encircled with a black
stain which was undoubtedly old blood
and that telltale hole was as shocking, as
pitiful, as a wound.
''Ohl ohr' | said to Pere Vidal, who had
suddenly dropped the coat and was on his
way again, stepping quickly with bowed
head, there was a sad scarf And antici-
pating a story added, to excite my COM
panion into telling it, "The captains of the
Eouaves were not usually shot in the
back"
But he did not appear 10 hear me, and
he muttered some words, biting his mus
tache: How came it to be stranded thereg
It's long way from the battlefield Of Me-
legnano to the Boulevard de Grenelle. Oh,
j see IL; thecrows that follow the army;
the robbers of the dead But why Just
there, two steps from the Ecole Militaire,
where his regiment is stationed with the
other? And be should have passed by
herel he should have recognized thatl Oh,
it is like a ghostw
Look here, Pere Vidal" | said, begin
ming TO be good deal interested and TAX
ing him by the arm. You are not going TO
continue TO talk in enigmas. and YOU are
going TO tell me what memories have been
awakened by that pierced tunic"
/ certainly believe that without the two
glasses OF absinthe ! should have learned
nothing, for at that demand Pere Vidal
looked at me distrustfUlly, almost anxious
ly; but suddenly, as if making great re-
solve, he said shortly:
well, yes, l will tell it TO You. Inas-
much as you are well informed and hon
est young man, have confidence in YOU.
and when / have finished you shall tell
frankly-your hand on your HEARTH you
think it strange in me Co be moved as !
have been moved. Let Us see. Where
shall we begins First, cannot tell you
his name, the other, since he is living but
shall call him by the nickname which we
gave him in the regiment. Thirsty-yes,
we used TO call him Thirsty-and be well |
answered the name bpin-onr 81 those who