Down along the swamps that edged the river they could see soldiers building corduroy, repairing bridges, digging ditches, and, in one spot, erecting a fort.

"You gave up the blue corduroy," he commented as they walked on, "and you didn't scold your silly old kinswoman.

Unconsciously, as though he were alone, he hitched the corduroys up over his narrow hips, in the motion of one who has been riding.

"M. le Maire," indicating corduroys, who clutched a handful of straw out of his beard and groaned loudly.

The third member was a thick short bulldog of a woman, who, from the masterly way in which she kept corduroys from slipping into the village smithy and saved the cleric from drifting to a sailor's grave in the duck-pond, seemed to be the controlling spirit of the party.

Such sublime flights as that of the man who revived corduroy, or of that daring genius who resuscitated the half-forgotten Inverness coat, were unknown to him.

They sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were.