C'est simple comme bonjour. — It's a very simple thing

41. Une fois en mesure de réemboîter le pas. — As soon as I was able to march again. Emboîter le pas means to lock up in marching.

42. Pour avoir ... à mon aise. — I was none the more at my ease on account of having a leg the less to nourish. Compare with note 7.

43. Que je l'avais tiré de la bagarre. — That I had got him out of the fray. Bagarre is thus familiarly used, as in se tirer de la bagarre, to get out of a scrape.

44. Place au feu et a la chandelle. — A comfortable home. This is an old military term, used to express the right to enjoy certain privilèges, at a halting-place.

45. Pas mal de fermes. — A good many, a good lot of farms. Pas mal is also used idiomatically in the sensé of pretty well.

46. Restait a savoir. — It remained to be seen. The omission of il before the impersonal verb rester has already been noticed, XXVII., 11.

47. // s'agit de se conduire. — You must behave. See XXVIL, 19.

48. Prendre ses invalides. — Find a pleasant retreat. Invalides is thus used to dénote an honorable retreat, a recompense which crowns long services. Tins use of the word is derived from l'Hôtel des Invalides at Paris where old and disabled soldiers are cared for.

49. Encore quelques charges a fond. — A few more hearty charges. A fond means iully, thoroughly, to the bottora. Charger a fond, faire une charge a fond, is used in speaking of a troop which attacks another with impetuosity. In the same sentence poignet, literally the wrist, is figuratively used for strength.

50. Ça me soutenait le moral. — That kept my courage up. Le moral (masc.j is the mind, the spiritual faculties as opposed to the physical. It

must not be confounded with la morale (fem.), morality. This explains the exact force of the military words demoralize and demoralization, which are derived from le moral, not from la morale.

61. Et nous envoya une mitraille de cailloux. — And sent us a volley of pebbles. Mitraille was, anciently, ail kinds of pièces of broken métal. It now means grape-shot.

52. Un peu. — I should tbink so ! Un peu is used, in very fainiliar language, as a disdainful affirmation, and corresponds to tlie interjectional use of the English rather.

53. Ruinés a la Bourse. — Ruined by spéculation. La bourse, literally the purse, is the name given in France to the Exchange, and, by extension, to the spéculations carried on there.

54. Un professeur d'humanités. — A collège professor, or, more exactly, a professor in a French collège or lycée who teaches the high branches of Greek and Latin literature. The classes engaged in this study are called classes des lettres, and rank above the classes de grammaire, and below the so-called classe de philosophie, which is the last year in a French collège. For a somewhat similar use of humanities in English, see Webster's Dictionary.

55. Tout ça ... le prix Montyon. — Thèse people could not hâve competed for the Montyon prize. Ça, a contraction of cela, is often familiarly used when speaking of persons, sometimes contemptuously, but not always. The Montyon prize, known as le prix de vertu, is one of the four annual prizes of ten thousand francs each, instituted by Montyon " en faveur d'un Français pauvre qui aura fait dans l'année l'action la plus vertueuse."

56. Pour cause de reforme. — Because I was disabled. Compare the military expression être en réforme, to be invalided, and il vient d'obtenir son congé de réforme, he has just obtained an honorable discharge from the army as being incapable of serving. Notice that réformer, to pension off, to put upon half pay, has the acute accent, while reformer, to reform, has none.

57. Voila deux mois que. — It is now two months since. Voila hère takes the place of il y a.

58. Encore avait-elle. — And besides it had. For the position of elle, see Grammar, p. 256, § 5.