midday
Gray did not like his great-coat -- a fine old French-blue military thing with brass buttons -- the arrogant civilian would have none of it ! It was easier to shift the Boches on the Western front than to shift an idea , once in his head . In the poor soil of his soul the following plants of thought alone now flourished : Hatred of the Boches ; love of English tobacco -- ' _ Il est bon -- il est bon ! _ ' he would say , tapping his Virginian cigarette ; the wish to see again his ` petite fille ' ; to wash himself ; to drink a ' _ café natur _ ' and bottled beer every day after the midday meal , and to go to Lyons to see his uncle and work for his living . And who shall say that any of these fixed ideas were evil in him ? But back to Flotsam , whose fixed idea was Brittany ! Nostalgia is a long word , and a malady from which the English do not suffer , for they carry their country on their backs , walk the wide world in a cloud of their own atmosphere , making that world England .