ussian army or the Prussian reserves as
a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three
years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours?
The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole
country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of
which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that
district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the
towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge,
from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths,
farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour's notice.

"The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the
route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached.
And then--the transformation! A yokel enters--a soldier leaves.
The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown
forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,'
his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as
whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are
orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none
are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the
barrack gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers'
women."

He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.

"They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching?
I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at
eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty
rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade,
water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about
them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No.
Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche."

"We beat those men at Saarbrueck," said Jack.

Grahame laughed good-humouredly.

"At Saarbrueck, when war was declared, the total German garrison
consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans.
Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbrueck
over the ridges of the Spicheren, and nobody had the means of
knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to
French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his
path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory
which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbrueck
at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging shells there, too.
Why, we were all asking each other i