CHAPTER XV
Now the streets of Paris were assailed by the colour of olive drab, the twang of Yankee accents, the music of Broadway songs. Hugo watched the first parade with eyes somewhat proud and not a little sombre. Each shuffling step seemed to ask a rhythmic question. Who would not return to Paris? Who would return once and not again? Who would be blind? Who would be hideous? Who would be armless, legless, who would wear silver plates and leather props for his declining years? Hugo wondered, and, looking into those sometimes stern and sometimes ribald faces, he saw that they had not yet commenced to wonder.
They did not know the hammer and shock of falling shells and the jelly and putty which men became. They chafed and bantered and stormed every café and cocotte impartially, reckless
