I deal in all kinds of
rags, from linen to jam-pots, but principally brush-handles, sacks,
and old shoes; and naturally, I make a specialty of rabbit-skins."
And a little later I still hear him: "As for me, little and
queer-shaped as I am, all the same I can carry a bin of two hundred
pounds' weight to the warehouse. up the steps, and my feet in
sabots. Once I had a to-do with a person--"
"What I can't abide," cries Fouillade, all of a sudden, "is the
exercises and marches they give us when we're resting. My back's
mincemeat, and I can't get a snooze even, I'm that cramped."
There is a metallic noise in Volpatte's direction. He has decided to
take the stove, though he chides it constantly for the fatal fault
of its perforations.
One who is but half asleep groans, "Oh, la, la! When will this war
finish!"
A cry of stubborn and mysterious rebellion bursts forth--"They'd
take the very skin off us!"
There follows a single, "Don't fret yourself!" as darkly
inconsequent as the cry of revolt.
I wake up a long time afterwards, as two o'clock is striking; and in
a pallor of light which doubtless comes from the moon, I see the
agitated silhouette of Pinegal. A cock has crowed afar.
Pinegal raises himself halfway to a sitting position, and I
hear his husky voice: "Well now, it's the middle of the night, and
there's a cock loosing his jaw. He's blind drunk, that cock." He
laughs, and repeats, "He's blind, that cock," and he twists himself
again into the woolens, and resumes his slumber with a gurgle in
which snores are mingled with merriment.
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