n to attend to his affairs. No one
denies that war is a terrible business, but that is no reason why a
man should not be treated to the sight of a firing-party when he comes
trying to dishearten people who already have enough to do to keep their
courage up. Good Heavens, friends, how it makes a man's pulses leap to
be told that the Prussians are in the land and that he is to go help
drive them out!"

Then, with the customary fickleness of a mob, the soldiers applauded the
corporal, who again announced his determination to thrash the first man
of his squad who should declare non-combatant principles. Bravo, the
corporal! they would soon settle old Bismarck's hash! And, in the midst
of the wild ovation of which he was the object, Jean, who had recovered
his self-control, turned politely to Maurice and addressed him as if he
had not been one of his men:

"Monsieur, you cannot have anything in common with those poltroons.
Come, we haven't had a chance at them yet; we are the boys who will give
them a good basting yet, those Prussians!"

It seemed to Maurice at that moment as if a ray of cheering sunshine had
penetrated his heart. He was humiliated, vexed with himself. What! that
man was nothing more than an uneducated rustic! And he remembered the
fierce hatred that had burned in his bosom the day he was compelled to
pick up the musket that he had thrown away in a moment of madness. But
he also remembered his emotion at seeing the two big tears that stood in
the corporal's eyes when the old grandmother, her gray hairs streaming
in the wind, had so bitterly reproached them and pointed to the Rhine
that lay beneath the horizon in the distance. Was it the brotherhood
of fatigue and suffering endured in common that had served thus to
dissipate his wrathful feelings? He was Bonapartist by birth, and had
never thought of the Republic except in a speculative, dreamy way; his
feeling toward the Emperor, personally, too, inclined to friendliness,
and he was favorable to the war, the very condition of national
existence, the great regenerative school of nationalities. Hope, all at
once, with one of those fitful impulses of the imagination, that were
common in his temperament, revived in him, while the enthusiastic ardor
that had impelled him to enlist one night again surged through his veins
and swelled his heart with confidence of victory.

"Why, of course, Corporal," he gayly replied, "we shall give them a
basting!"

And stil