h
people. The more I see of them the more I get tired of their bombast and
their empty talk. Every man expects everyone else to do something and no
one does anything."

"They have had nothing to stir them into action yet," he said, "only the
regulars and the moblots go outside the wall, and the National Guard are
practically useless until the Germans make an assault. Besides, three
parts of them are married men with families, and nothing short of their
homes being in danger will stir them up to risk their lives. We are
going out for three days to the outposts, we fall in at five o'clock
to-morrow morning."

"You are going to risk your life," she said, indignantly, "for the
Parisians, who have no idea whatever of risking theirs. I call it
madness."

"You are going against your own doctrines, Miss Brander. Before you were
indignant with me for doing nothing and being in earnest about nothing.
Now that I am doing something and that in grim earnest, you are just as
indignant as you were before."

"I did not mean this sort of thing," she said.

"No, I don't suppose you contemplated this. But you wanted me to work
for work's sake, although as it seemed then there was no occasion for me
to work."

"If it had been on the other side I should not have minded."

"Just so," he smiled. "You have become Germanized, I have not. My
friends here have all enlisted; I am going with them partly because they
are my friends and partly because it is evident the Germans might have
well stopped this war before now, but they demand terms that France can
never submit to as long as there is the faintest hope of success. You
need not be at all anxious about me. We are not going to attack the
Prussian positions I can assure you. We are only going out to do a
little outpost duty, to learn to hear the bullets flying without
ducking, and to fire our rifles without shutting our eyes. I don't
suppose there are five men in the three companies who have ever fired a
rifle in their lives.

"You see the Franc-tireurs are to a great extent independent of the
military authorities--if you can call men military authorities who
exercise next to no authority over their soldiers. The Franc-tireurs
come and go as they choose, and a good many of them wear the uniform
only as a means of escape from serving, and as a whole they are next to
useless. I think our corps will do better things. We are all students of
art, law or physic, and a good deal like such vo