ar-rms so that--'tis the truth I'm tellin' ye--I plucked enough for a
parlor duster! But whin I got downstairs investigatin', the gang was no
more'n a loose shutter flappin' in the wind. The burglars was just a
noise--d'ye git me? No danger, but a noise--an' w'ot's a noise? Ye see,
Jeb, 'twas the wrong kind of thinkin'; an' the wrong kind of thinkin'
breeds fear, an' fear shrinks up a man whilst it makes the inimy grow
six inches. Put them six inches on yeself, say I, an' let the Boche
shrink--which he'll do, too, whin he sees ye've the bigger courage!"

It did not occur to Jeb that this man was doing his very utmost to
inspire one spark of the lacking courage; he did not realize that Tim
was thoughtfully picking his words, as carefully as though he were
telling stories to a little child. Tim would not have been the crack
sergeant that he was had Jeb suspected this!

"I can see them shrinking now," Jeb said, with something like a sneer at
Tim's assurance. "Why, everybody says they're the finest fighters on
earth!"

"Thin iverybody lies, an' 'tis Tim Doreen as says it! There ye go again
wid a lot of domn fool thinkin' of w'ot ye got no cause to think. Wasn't
I just after tellin' ye there ain't no worse dry-rot for a soldier? The
Boche can put up as good a scrap as most, lad, whin they're bunched in a
crowd, but take 'em mon for mon an' they ain't no fighters a-tall,
a-tall. I ain't denyin' their officers is hep to the game--but thot's
just w'ot proves me p'int: for do ye s'pose their fat-headed gineral
staff'd be silly enough to march ar-rmy after ar-rmy jam up aginst our
strong positions, bunched like a herd o' sheep, if they didn't know the
men was too spineless to go into the fray like us, or the British, or
the Frinch--which is to say, in open order an' like hell?"

"I don't see how that'll get us anywhere," Jeb remarked.

"'Twill get us _iverywhere_," Tim replied emphatically. "Didn't it get
us as far as we've got, whin we were at our wur-rst, an' thim at their
best? An' they was shure a rattlin' ar-rmy thot first year, make no
mistake on thot, lad! There was fine steel in 'em, mind ye: the 2nd
Bavarian Corps, now, which did me heart good to fight wid!--cruel,
unprincipled outcasts, to be shure, an' wid no mercy nor respect for
women--still, they was good fighters! But of late the b'ys tells me
their whole ar-rmy's been so watered down wid inferior stuff thot ye'd
not know it for the same; an' lest they're touch