Some of them lay
in the Argonne, or at Chateau-Thierry, and for them peace had come
too late. But the Americans, like the rest of the world, had put
the past behind them. Here was the present, the glorious present,
and Paris on a sunny Monday. And after that would be home.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
What the hell do we care?
What the hell do we care?
Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
What the hell do we care now?"
Gradually the noise became uproarious. There were no bands in Paris,
and any school-boy with a tin horn or a toy drum could start a
procession. Bearded little poilus, arm in arm from curb to curb,
marched grinning down the center of the streets, capturing and
kissing pretty midinettes, or surrounding officers and dancing madly;
Audrey saw an Algerian, ragged and dirty from the battle-fields,
kiss on both cheeks a portly British Admiral of the fleet, and was
herself kissed by a French sailor, with extreme robustness and a
slight tinge of vin ordinaire.
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