provinces, with the thin, white skin which does not tan but burns. He
was frailer than the other and he was tired! He would lag and then
stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more
energy into his steps.

A typical, lively French soldier was escorting the pair. He looked pretty
tired, too, but he was getting over the ground in the natural, easy way
in which man is meant to walk. The aboriginal races, who have a
genius for long distances on foot, do not march in the German
fashion, which looks impressive, but lacks endurance. By the same
logic, the cowboy pony's gait is better for thirty miles day in and day
out than the gait of the high-stepping carriage horse.

You could realize the contempt which those two martial Germans had
for their captor. Four or five peasant women refugees by the roadside
loosened their tongues in piercing feminine satire and upbraiding.

"You are going to Paris, after all! This is what you get for invading our
country; and you'll get more of it!"

The little French soldier held up his hand to the women and shook his
head. He was a chivalrous fellow, with imagination enough to
appreciate the feelings of an enemy who has fought hard and lost.
Such as he would fight fair and hold this war of the civilizations up to
something like the standards of civilization.

The very tired German stiffened up again, as his drill sergeant had
taught him, and both stared straight ahead, proud and contemptuous,
as their Kaiser would wish them to do. I should recognize the faces of
those two Germans and of that little French guard if I saw them ten