sound,' and his pals'll be glad, because be's a good sort, with
engaging manners, contemptible creature that he is, and--and this is
the most stupid thing of all--but he takes you in and you swallow
him whole, the son of a bug.

"And then, those sort of beings, don't you believe there's only one
of them. There are barrels of 'em in every depot, that hang on and
writhe when their time comes to go, and they say, 'I'm not going,'
and they don't go, and they never succeed in driving them as far as
the front."

"Nothing new in all that," said Barque, "we know it, we know it!"

"Then there are the offices," Volpatte went on, engrossed in his
story of travel; "whole houses and streets and districts. I saw that
my little corner in the rear was only a speck, and I had full view
of them. Non, I'd never have believed there'd be so many men on
chairs while war was going on--"

A hand protruded from the rank and made trial of space--"No more
sauce falling"--"Then we're going out, bet your life on it." So
"March!" was the cry.

The storm held its peace. We filed off in the long narrow swamp
stagnating in the bottom of the trench where the moment before it
had shaken under slabs of rain. Volpatte's grumbling began again
amidst our sorry stroll and the eddies of floundering feet. I
listened to him as I watched the shoulders of a poverty-stricken
overcoat swaying in front of me, drenched through and through. This
time Volpatte was on the track of the police--