me things. In the evenings, when the
non-commissioned officers were sitting in the canteen, the men took
their stools out on the open veranda that looked over the forest; and
then Weise would begin to hold forth, his comrades, either smoking or
cleaning their clothes and accoutrements, grouped round him listening
to his orations. When some of the men, fresh from the country,
complained of the hard work there, the endless long hours, and the
small pay, he laughed outright.

"Why do you allow your landed-proprietors to treat you so?" he scoffed.
"Why are you so stupid? Of course if you won't utter a word of protest
you don't deserve anything better."

And he explained how things were managed in his trade, at the factory.
If one of the workmen was unfairly treated, or if the pay was
considered too small, then they had a thorough good strike. They took
care to choose the best possible time for it, when the manufacturers
had the most pressing work to do. The trade-union, to which of course
they all had to belong, kept blacklegs at a distance, and they went on
doggedly righting until new terms had been won. Certainly the workmen
did not invariably carry all their demands; but a strike seldom ended
without their gaining some solid advantage. Yes, the workers had only
to show the world that they were a power; that they were not going to
be trampled on for ever; that they intended henceforth to have their
share of the profits which they had hitherto been putting into the
pockets of the rich, although earned by their own toil and sweat.

Or Weise would reckon how much was spent in one day's gun-practice.
Each shot cost about fifteen marks; and the sixth battery alone had
fired about a hundred and twenty shots that morning. There were six
batteries in each regiment, four regiments in each army-corps, and
twenty-three army-corps in the whole of Germany.

"Any-one who likes can reckon it up," said Weise. "In any case the
money would be enough to give every poor devil in the whole world one
happy day!"

He pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it the sum that Germany
spent annually on her army. It made the men open their eyes pretty
wide. An incredible sum, truly, of which they could form no clear idea
at all.

Sometimes one of them would say! "But look here, old man; suppose there
was war, and we had no soldiers?"

"War! war!" said Weise. "What is war, pray? Who is it that makes war?
Do you want war? Do you want to have