"
"Not to mention," says Pepin, "that they've got silver hats,
and pistols that you can get four quid for whenever you like, and
field-glasses that simply haven't got a price. Ah, bad luck, what a
lot of chances I let slip in the early part of the campaign! I was
too much of a beginner then, and it serves me right. But don't
worry, I shall get a silver hat. Mark my words, I swear I'll have
one. I must have not only the skin of one of Wilhelm's red-tabs, but
his togs as well. Don't fret yourself; I'll fasten on to that before
the war ends."
"You think it'll have an end, then?" asks some one.
"Don't worry!" replies the other.
* * * * * *
Meanwhile, a hubbub has arisen to the right of us, and suddenly a
moving and buzzing group appears, in which dark and bright forms
mingle.
"What's all that?"
Biquet has ventured on a reconnaissance, and returns contemptuously
pointing with his thumb towards the motley mass: "Eh, boys! Come and
have a squint at them! Some people!"
"Some people?"
"Oui, some gentlemen, look you. Civvies, with Staff officers."
"Civilians! Let's hope they'll stick it!" [note 3]
It is the sacramental saying and evokes laughter, although we have
heard it a hundred times, and although the soldier has rightly or
wrongly perverted the original meaning and regards it as an ironical
reflection on his life of privations and peril.
Two Somebodies come up; two Somebodies with overcoats and canes.
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