thed.

"Say there, papa, if you will be so kind as to give me the address of
your tailor in London!"

A chuckle comes from the antiquated and wrinkle-scrawled face, and then
the poilu, checked for an instant by Barque's command, is jostled by
the following flood and swept away.

When some less striking figures have gone past, a new victim is
provided for the jokers. On his red and wrinkled neck luxuriates some
dirty sheep's-wool. With knees bent, his body forward, his back bowed,
this Territorial's carriage is the worst.

"Tiens!" bawls Tirette, with pointed finger, "the famous
concertina-man! It would cost you something to see him at the
fair--here, he's free gratis!"

The victim stammers responsive insults amid the scattered laughter that
arises.

No more than that laughter is required to excite the two comrades. It
is the ambition to have their jests voted funny by their easy audience
that stimulates them to mock the peculiarities of their old
comrades-in-arms, of those who toil night and day on the brink of the
great war to make ready and make good the fields of battle.

And even the other watchers join in. Miserable themselves, they scoff
at the still more miserable.

"Look at that one! And that, look!"

"Non, but take me a snapshot of that little rump-end! Hey, earth-worm!"

"And that one that has no ending! Talk about a sky-scratcher! Tiens,
la, he takes the biscuit. Yes, you take it, old chap!"

This man goes with little steps, and holds his pickax up in front like
a candle; his face is withered, and his body borne down by the blows of
lumbago.

"Like a penny, gran'pa?" Barque asks him, as he passes within reach of
a tap on the shoulder.

The broken-down poilu replies with a great oath of annoyance, and
provokes the harsh rejoinder of Barque: "Come now, you might be polite,
filthy-face, old muck-mill!"

Turning right round in fury, the old one defies his tormentor.

"Hullo!" cries Barque, laughing, "He's showing fight; the ruin! He's
warlike, look you, and he might be mischievous if only he were sixty
years younger!"

"And if he wasn't alone," wantonly adds Pepin, whose eye is in quest of
other targets among the flow of new arrivals.

The hollow chest of the last straggler appears, and then his distorted
back disappears.

The march past of the worn-out and trench-foul veterans comes to an end
among the ironical and almost malevolent faces of these sinister
troglodytes, whom their caverns