'All right, all right,' he kept saying; and I
didn't like it, you know, because I did wrong all the time, although
I was right."
We go back together in silence and re-enter the dugout where the
others are gathered. It is an old headquarters post, and spacious.
Just as we slide in, Paradis listens. "Our batteries have been
playing extra hell for the last hour, don't you think?"
I know what he means, and reply with an empty gesture, "We shall
see, old man, we shall see all right!"
In the dug-out, to an audience of three, Tirette is again pouring
out his barrack-life tales. Marthereau is snoring in a corner; he is
close to the entry, and to get down we have to stride over his short
legs, which seem to have gone back into his trunk. A group of
kneeling men around a folded blanket are playing with cards--
"My turn!"--"40, 42--48--49!--Good!"
"Isn't he lucky, that game-bird; it's imposs', I've got stumped
three times I want nothing more to do with you. You're skinning me
this evening, and you robbed me the other day, too, you infernal
fritter!"--"What did you revoke for, mugwump?"--"I'd only the king,
nothing else."
"All the same," murmurs some one who is eating in a corner, "this
Camembert, it cost twenty-five sous, but you talk about muck!
Outside there's a layer of sticky glue, and inside it's plaster that
breaks."
Meanwhile Tirette relates the outrages inflicted on him during his
twenty-one days of training owing to the quarrelsome temper of a
certain major: "A great hog he was, my boy.
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