commandant who was getting an impossible temper, and they explained
that the more imbecile he got the harsher he got; and the General
that made unexpected inspections with the idea of kicking all the
soft-jobbers out, but who'd been laid up for eight days, very
ill--'he's certainly going to die; his condition no longer gives
rise to any uneasiness,' they said, smoking the cigarettes that
Society swells send to the depots for the soldiers at the front.
'D'you know,' they said, 'little Frazy, who is such a nice boy, the
cherub, he's at last found an excuse for staying behind. They wanted
some cattle slaughterers for the abattoir, and he's enlisted himself
in there for protection, although he's got a University degree and
in spite of being an attorney's clerk. As for Flandrin's son, he's
succeeded in getting himself attached to the
roadmenders.--Roadmender, him? Do you think they'll let him stop
so?' 'Certain sure,' replies one of the cowardly milksops. 'A
road-mender's job is for a long time.'

"Talk about idiots," Marthereau growls.

"And they were all jealous, I don't know why, of a chap called
Bourin. Formerly he moved in the best Parisian circles. He lunched
and dined in the city. He made eighteen calls a day, and fluttered
about the drawing-rooms from afternoon tea till daybreak. He was
indefatigable in leading cotillons, organizing festivities,
swallowing theatrical shows, without counting the motoring parties,
and all the lot running with champagne. Then the war came. So he's
no longer capable, the poor boy, of staying on the look-out a bit
late at an embrasure, or of cutting wire. He must stay peacefully in
the warm. And then, him, a Parisian, to go into the provinces and
bury himself in the trenches! Never in this world! 'I realize, too,'