place."

"Very likely--but what does that prove, rump-face? To begin with,
we, we've been in danger, and it ought to be our turn for the other.
But they're always the same, I tell you; and then there's young men
there, strong as bulls and poised like wrestlers, and then--there
are too many of them! D'you hear? It's always too many, I say,
because it is so."

"Too many? What do you know about it, vilain? These departments and
committees, do you know what they are?"

"I don't know what they are," Volpatte set off again, "but I
know--"

"Don't you think they need a crowd to keep all the army's affairs
going?"

"I don't care a damn, but--"

"But you wish it was you, eh?" chaffed the invisible neighbor, who
concealed in the depth of the hood on which the reservoirs of space
were emptying either a supreme indifference or a cruel desire to
take a rise out of Volpatte.

"I can't help it," said the other, simply.

"There's those that can help it for you," interposed the shrill
voice of Barque; "I knew one of 'em--"