Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE COCKEREL CHAPTER I Monsieur Badin blew out his lantern, stamped his feet and rubbed the earth from his hands. "There," said he to his wife as he entered the kitchen, "everything is buried, well hidden, and it will take a pretty clever person to discover where I put our linen and our silver. The wine I don't care so much about. And after all," he added, "I suppose we're living in a civilised age. There must be discipline in all the armies, no matter what is rumoured." Madame Badin shrugged her shoulders. "We can leave as day breaks," she answered, as she finished tying a string around a bulging pasteboard box. "Here," she continued, "take this, Joseph, and put it carefully on top of the cart." Monsieur Badin silently disappeared into the darkness, and presently returned to lean against the door jamb, his 638 following the every movement of his better half, who was bustling about the kitchen. Presently she turned around. "A propos, Joseph," she questioned, "what are we going to do with Toto?" "Toto? Take him with us, of course." "Take him with us? Where? Why, we don't even know ourselves where we're going. It would be most foolhardy to think of taking the child along under such conditions. You don't seem to remember that six months ago when his mother died, his father left him here as stable boy. Personally, I think he was glad enough to get rid of him, but, nevertheless, that man is the boy's father and we cannot legally take it upon ourselves to disappear with his child. Suppose something should happen to him?" Monsieur Badin pushed back his hat and scratched his head. Like all good Frenchmen the idea of being arrested and tried for child abduction was not a thought to make his heart rejoice. "I suppose you're right, but what can we do with...