myself, I used to have a look at this photo"--he showed me a
photograph of a big, chubby-faced woman--"and then it was quite easy
to set about this damned ring. You might say that we've made it
together, see? The proof of that is that it was company for me, and
that I said Adieu to it when I sent it off to Mother Blaire."

He is making another just now, and this one will have copper in it,
too. He works eagerly. His heart would fain express itself to the
best advantage in this the sort of penmanship upon which he is so
tenaciously bent.

As they stoop reverently, in their naked earth-holes, over the
slender rudimentary trinkets--so tiny that the great hide-bound
hands hold them with difficulty or let them fall--these men seem
still more wild, more primitive, and more human, than at all other
times.

You are set thinking of the first inventor, the father of all
craftsmen, who sought to invest enduring materials with the shapes
of what he saw and the spirit of what he felt.

* * * * * *

"People coming along," announces Biquet the mobile, who acts as
hall-porter to our section of the trench--"buckets of 'em."
Immediately an adjutant appears, with straps round his belly and his
chin, and brandishing his sword-scabbard.

"Out of the way, you! Out of the way, I tell you! You loafers there,
out of it! Let me see you quit, hey!" We make way indolently. Those