IV
"THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON"
"Were I to live till the end of the world," the machinist, a former cavalryman, said to Laurent while he cleaned, polished and rubbed down the three hundred horsepower metal monster, "I should never forget that scene. Yes, sir! This jade here did a pretty piece of business that day! And instead of grooming it as I am doing now, I am often tempted to hack it into as many pieces as it made of my pal. And he hadn't even been drawn, that stoker of mine! And he was so robust, so healthy, that they called him the blond 'Curly.' Not a blemish on his body. There was a conscript for you whom the board of militia would not have discharged! He was so well built that one of those gentlemen from the Academy sculptured him in white marble, like the 'poses' in the park—idols, they say! Maybe that resemblance to the false gods brought him bad luck! It wouldn't have made any difference had he walked around naked like our first parents; nobody would have been shocked. Oh, well! It wasn't in ten, but in a hundred pieces that he was hacked by this machine. After the pieces had been gathered together with great trouble, it was necessary to shroud them, and I began with two other good chaps—I tell you it was necessary—by swallowing, one right after
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