ng me the odor of a sweetshop, he
stammers--"Tell me, you writing chap, you'll be writing later about
soldiers, you'll be speaking of us, eh?"

"Why yes, sonny, I shall talk about you, and about the boys, and about
our life."

"Tell me, then"--he indicates with a nod the papers on which I have
been making notes. With hovering pencil I watch and listen to him. He
has a question to put to me--"Tell me, then, though you needn't if you
don't want--there's something I want to ask you. This is it; if you
make the common soldiers talk in your book, are you going to make them
talk like they do talk, or shall you put it all straight--into pretty
talk? It's about the big words that we use. For after all, now, besides
falling out sometimes and blackguarding each other, you'll never hear
two poilus open their heads for a minute without saying and repeating
things that the printers wouldn't much like to print. Then what? If you
don't say 'em, your portrait won't be a lifelike one it's as if you
were going to paint them and then left out one of the gaudiest colors
wherever you found it. All the same, it isn't usually done."

"I shall put the big words in their place, dadda, for they're the
truth."

"But tell me, if you put 'em in, won't the people of your sort say
you're swine, without worrying about the truth?"

"Very likely, but I shall do it all the same, without worrying about
those people."

"Do you want my opinion? Although I know nothing about books, it's
brave to do that, because it isn't usually done, and it'll be spicy if
you dare do it--but you'll find it hard when it comes to it, you're too
polite. That's just one of the faults I've found in you since we've
known each other; that, and also that dirty habit you've got, when
they're serving brandy out to us, you pretend it'll do you harm, and
instead of giving your share to a pal, you go and pour it on your head
to wash your scalp."

XIV

Of Burdens

AT the end of the yard of the Muets farm, among the outbuildings, the
barn gapes like a cavern. It is always caverns for us, even in houses!
When you have crossed the yard, where the manure yields underfoot with
a spongy sound or have gone round it instead on the narrow paved path
of difficult equilibrium, and when you have arrived at the entrance to
the barn, you can see nothing at all.

Then, if you persist, you make out a misty hollow where equally misty
and dark lumps are asquat or prone or wandering f