"It was the relief of the 129th. Where had you put it?"

He indicates a bayonet stuck in the wall of the trench close to the
mouth of a funk-hole--"There, hanging on the toothpick there."

"Ass!" comes the chorus. "Within reach of passing soldiers! Not
dotty, are you?"

"It's hard lines all the same," wails Tirloir. Then suddenly a fit
of rage seizes him, his face crumples, his little fists clench in
fury, he tightens them like knots in string and waves them about.
"Alors quoi? Ah, if I had hold of the mongrel that did it! Talk
about breaking his jaw--I'd stave in his bread-pan, I'd--there was a
whole Camembert in there, I'll go and look for it." He massages his
stomach with the little sharp taps of a guitar player, and plunges
into the gray of the morning, grinning yet dignified, with his
awkward outlines of an invalid in a dressing-gown. We hear him
grumbling until he disappears.

"Strange man, that," says Pepin; the others chuckle. "He's
daft and crazy," declares Marthereau, who is in the habit of
fortifying the expression of his thought by using two synonyms at
once.

* * * * * *

"Tiens, old man," says Tulacque, as he comes up. "Look at this."

Tulacque is magnificent. He is wearing a lemon-yellow coat made out