coming up to him. "I found it in that ruined house there--all the
Germans had left. I haven't had a confiture for a long time, and,
monsieur, you cannot imagine what a hunger I have for confitures."

All the while the French battery kept on firing slowly, then again
rapidly, their cracks trilling off like the drum of knuckles on a
table-top. Another effort to locate one of the guns before we started
back to Paris failed. Speeding on, we had again a glimpse of the
landscape toward Noyon, sprinkled with shell-bursts. The reserves
were around their camp-fires making savoury stews for the evening
meal. They would sleep where night found them on the sward under
the stars, as in wars of old. That scene remains indelible as one of
many while the army was yet mobile, before the contest became
one of the mole and the beaver.

Though one had already seen many German prisoners in groups and
convoys, the sight of two on the road fixed the attention because of
the surroundings and the contrast suggested between French and
German natures. Both were young, in the very prime of life, and both
Prussian. One was dark-complexioned, with a scrubbly beard which
was the product of the war. He marched with such rigidity that I
should not have been surprised to see him break into a goose-step.
The other was of that mild, blue-eyed, tow-haired type from the Baltic
provinces, with the thin, white skin which does not tan but burns. He
was frailer than the other and he was tired! He would lag and then
stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more
energy into his steps.

A typical, lively French soldier was escorting the pair. He looked pretty
tired, too, but he was getting over the ground in the natural, easy way
in which man is meant to walk. The aboriginal races, who have a
genius for long distances on foot, do not march in the German
fashion, which looks impressive, but lacks endurance. By the same
logic, the cowboy pony's gait is better for thirty miles day in and day
out than the gait of the high-stepping carriage horse.

You could realize the contempt which those two martial Germans had
for their captor. Four or five peasant women refugees by the roadside
loosened their tongues in piercing feminine satire and upbraiding.

"You are going to Paris, after all! This is what you get for invading our
country; and you'll get more of it!"

The little French soldier held up his hand to the women and shook his
head. H