er, still excited and already ashamed
of the fit of barbarism which had so suddenly risen in us and urged our
arms.

"What about it? It's a natural thing to do--we're becoming men again,
that's all," said Margat.

Having nothing to do we sat down there, commanding a view of the dale.
The day had been fine.

Margat's looks strayed here and there. He frowned, and disparaged the
village because it was not like his own. What a comical idea to have
built it like that! He did not like the church, the singular shape of
it, the steeple in that position instead of where it should have been.

Orango and Remus came and sat down by us in the ripening sun of
evening.

Far away we saw the explosion of a shell, like a white shrub. We
chuckled at the harmless shot in the hazy distance and Remus made a
just observation. "As long as it's not dropped here, you might say as
one doesn't mind, eh, s'long as it's dropped somewhere else, eh?"

At that moment a cloud of dirty smoke took shape five hundred yards
away at the foot of the village, and a heavy detonation rolled up to
where we were.

"They're plugging the bottom of the village," Orango laconically
certified.

Margat, still ruminating his grievance, cried, "'Fraid it's not on the
grocers it's dropped, that crump, seeing he lives right at the other
end. More's the pity. He charges any old price he likes and then he
says to you as well, 'If you're not satisfied, my lad, you can go to
hell.' Ah, more's the pity!"

He sighed, and resumed. "Ah, grocers, they beat all, they do. You can
starve or you can bankrupt, that's their gospel; 'You don't matter to
me, _I've_ got to make money!'"

"What do you want to be pasting the grocers for," Orango asked, "as
long as they've always been like that? They're Messrs. Thief & Sons."

After a silence, Remus coughed, to encourage his voice, and said, "I'm
a grocer."

Then Margat said to him artlessly, "Well, what about it, old chap? We
know well enough, don't we, that here on earth profit's the strongest
of all."

"Why, yes, to be sure, old man," Remus replied.

* * * * * *

One day, while we were carrying our straw to our billets, one of my
lowly companions came up and questioned me as he walked. "I'd like you
to explain to me why there isn't any justice. I've been to the captain
to ask for leave that I'd a right to and I shows him a letter to say my
aunt's shortly deceased. 'That'