Therefore, when the clerk had finished telegraphing
the last lines dictated by Blount, Alcide Jolivet noiselessly
took his place at the wicket, and, just as his rival had done,
after quietly depositing a respectable pile of roubles on the shelf,
he delivered his dispatch, which the clerk read aloud:
"Madeleine Jolivet, 10, Faubourg Montmartre, Paris.
"From Kolyvan, Government of Omsk, Siberia, 6th August.
"Fugitives are escaping from the town. Russians defeated.
Fiercely pursued by the Tartar cavalry."
And as Harry Blount returned he heard Jolivet completing his telegram
by singing in a mocking tone:
"II est un petit homme, Tout habille de gris, Dans Paris!"
Imitating his rival, Alcide Jolivet had used a merry refrain of Beranger.
"Hallo!" said Harry Blount.
"Just so," answered Jolivet.
In the meantime the situation at Kolyvan was alarming in the extreme.
The battle was raging nearer, and the firing was incessant.
At that moment the telegraph office shook to its foundations.
A shell had made a hole in the wall, and a cloud of dust
filled the office.
Alcide was just finishing writing his lines; but to stop, dart on
the shell, seize it in both hands, throw it out of the window,
and return to the wicket, was only the affair of a moment.
Five seconds later the shell burst outside. Continuing with
the greatest possible coolness, Alcide wrote: "A six-inch
shell has just blown up the wall of the telegraph office.
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