"Possibly," a.s.sented Bart. "There"s no telling. But listen. "Speak of the cook and you"ll hear him shouting" or words to that effect.
Great Scott! He"s mad for fair this time."
"You"ve said it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Frank. "He"s about as angry as it"s possible for a Frenchman to be--and that"s going some."
Fate had willed that that day the Irish helper in a spirit of impish perversity should have annoyed the cook in various covert and ingenious ways until the latter"s irritation broke all bounds.
The cottage door flew open and the boy bounced out, about two jumps ahead of the cook whose face was crimson and eyes bulging.
"Pat has an air of haste about him," remarked Frank with a grin.
"He"d better have," laughed Bart. "Anatole is up in the air for fair."
"Leetle rat zat you air!" shouted the enraged cook, shaking a ladle furiously at his helper who stood at a safe distance wearing a tantalizing grin. "Sacre! but you drive me cr-r-r-azy weet your seely tricks. You air one Irish monkey, zat ees what you air! Ef I get hol"
of you--ah, you weel not forget eet soon, I tell you zat!" and he made a clumsy rush for the boy who easily dodged around a corner of the cottage. The cook raced after him and the pair made several circuits of the little building, although it was evident that the cook had absolutely no chance of catching his agile tormentor.
They made a highly ludicrous sight, and Frank and Bart, who happened to be the only spectators of the scene, roared with laughter, stamping about and hammering each other on the shoulder in the excess of their merriment.
But the cook was not long in discovering the futility of his efforts and gave up the chase, puffing and blowing like a grampus. His wrath had in nowise abated however, and he shook his fist impotently at the boy, who by his very silence and the ease with which he eluded him drove the unfortunate chef into a very paroxysm of fury.
"_Mille tonnerres!_" he shouted, and hurled the heavy ladle he had been carrying straight at his a.s.sistant"s head. But the lad ducked in time, and the heavy missile went whistling past him and found lodgment in the underbrush beyond.
"Better luck nixt toime," jeered the imp. "Try agin, why don"t ye?
Ye"ve got plinty uv thim ladles left. "Tis the bist uv exercise, throwin" thim things is."
Frank and Bart shouted afresh, while the outraged cook tore his hair in desperation and gave vent to a stream of epithets. The boy said nothing, but put his hand to his ear and affected to listen in a manner far more irritating than words could possibly have been.
The cook"s face grew more crimson than before and his naturally protruding eyes seemed about to leave their sockets. He danced wildly about, shaking his clenched fists madly in the air. At last however, just when he seemed threatened with a stroke of apoplexy, he stopped from sheer exhaustion and for the first time became conscious of the presence of Frank and Bart who were leaning on each other for support, convulsed with laughter and the tears streaming from their eyes.
He glared malevolently at them for a few moments but finding that this had little effect at last turned and went into the cottage still muttering imprecations on the head of his a.s.sistant.
"Help, help!" gasped Frank. "Hold me up, Bart, or I"ll go down. My, but that was rich."
"All of that," agreed Bart, wiping the tears from his eyes. "If we"d only had a moving picture machine and a phonograph handy to take down that scene. It would be the biggest hit of the age."
"It would have meant oodles of coin and no mistake," a.s.sented Bart.
"We"d have been beyond the reach of want for the rest of our natural lives."
"Anatole"s got a circus clown beaten by a thousand miles," replied Frank. "It"s too bad that the rest of the fellows couldn"t have been here to see the circus. But I suppose it"s ungrateful to criticize fate after she"s been so kind to us."
"I should say so," chuckled Bart. "If I live to be a hundred years old, I never expect to see anything funnier," and at the remembrance of the comical scene he started laughing afresh with his hand pressed against his side.
"Just the same," said Frank, when they had at last quieted down, "I wouldn"t like to be in that red-headed helper"s shoes. He"s got to go into the cottage soon, and when he does I have a hunch that something will happen to him."
"I think it"s extremely likely," agreed Bart, "and I can"t say but what he deserves it. It seems to me that Anatole has something coming to him in the way of revenge."
It was with considerable amus.e.m.e.nt that the two chums watched the actions of the Irish lad. For some time he kept clear of the cottage, but then the door opened and the cook"s head appeared in the doorway.
"Come here, you Mickey!" he called, in tones meant to be rea.s.suring, "and peel ze potatoes."
With a good deal of caution the boy reluctantly approached, but stopped just out of the cook"s reach for a parley.
"Wot ye goin" ter do wit" me whin ye git holt uv me?" he queried. "I wuz only foolin" wit" ye before. Can"t ye take a little joke?"
"Nevaire mind," replied the cook realizing his advantage. "Come an"
get beezy, else I tell ze captain you air--wat you call eet?--inzubordinate. Zen he make you come."
The boy glanced desperately around in search of some way of escape from his predicament, but finding none finally went reluctantly into the cottage.
"Here"s where retribution falls on him," said Frank with a grin.
He was not mistaken, for the boy had scarcely entered when there issued forth the sound of several l.u.s.ty smacks. Then came a high-pitched scolding which showed that Anatole had had recourse to moral as well as physical suasion.
"I don"t know but what I"d rather have the licking than the scolding,"
chuckled Bart as they listened to the voluble eloquence of the chef.
"Either one"s bad enough," laughed Frank. "I guess our young red-headed friend has got all that was coming to him."
Now the intensive training of the boys began in earnest. And training now had a meaning that it had never had while they were still on American soil.
For at that time they had not fully grasped the fact that they were actually at war. There had been a certain dream-like quality about it that had been like a scene from a play.
The only cannon they had heard were those fired in salute or at practice. The zip of a bullet had only meant that that bullet was speeding toward a wooden target.
But now the roar of cannon, multiplied a thousand fold above everything they had heard before, meant that deadly missiles were seeking out human life in an effort to maim and destroy.
And soon--how soon they did not know, but still soon--they themselves would be the target for whining bullets and shrieking sh.e.l.ls.
Practice now meant something. Expertness might mean the difference between saving life or losing it. A new spirit ran through the men like an electric current. No need now for their officers to urge them on. If anything, they had to hold the young soldiers back, lest they burn up their vitality and exhaust their strength before they were put to the final test.
As far as possible, the camp became a mimic battlefield. Trenches were dug, precisely like those that they would soon be holding against the attacks of the enemy.
Barbed wire fences were built by one regiment and cut through and beaten down by another, which, for the time being, was chosen to play the part of the enemy.
The bayonet practice was no longer against dummies but against a picked squad of their own comrades. And each side in these mimic battles was so eager to win that at times they almost forgot themselves, with slight wounds and bruises as a result before their officers could intervene.
"We"re getting there, Bart!" cried Frank, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, after a particularly strenuous encounter. "I"d back our boys right now to hold their own against any bunch of equal size that the Boches can send against them."
"We sure are doing dandy work," a.s.sented Bart. "I wonder when they"re going to put us on the firing line?"
"Before long I hope," chimed in Tom. "I"m aching to get a whack at them. It"s the only way I can let off steam," he added, ruefully. "I came near running one of the boys through with my bayonet to-day."
"I wonder where they"ll put us," conjectured Billy. "I suppose they"ll sandwich us in with some of the French troops for a while until we get our bearings."
"Maybe," said Frank. "But I"d like better to have us fellows take up some sector and hold it all by ourselves. The tri-color"s a fine flag, but when I fire my first bullet at a Hun I want to be under the Stars and Stripes."
"You"ve said it!" declared Tom.
"You fellows are regular fire-eaters," laughed d.i.c.k Lever, a young fellow with whom the boys had struck up a friendship.