so often by Romans, Frenchmen, Burgundians, Germans,
Flemings, Huns perhaps, and generally all those who in the last few
thousand years have taken a short cut at their enemies over the neck
of the Cote Barine. So you would imagine it to be a tumble-down, weak,
wretched, and disappearing place; but, so far from this, it is a rich
and proud village, growing, as I have said, better wine than any in
the garrison. Though Toul stands in a great cup or ring of hills, very
high and with steep slopes, and guns on all of them, and all these
hills grow wine, none is so good as Brule wine. And this reminds me of
a thing that happened in the Manoeuvres of 1891, _quorum pars magna_;
for there were two divisions employed in that glorious and fatiguing
great game, and more than a gross of guns--to be accurate, a hundred
and fifty-six--and of these one (the sixth piece of the tenth battery
of the eighth--I wonder where you all are now? I suppose I shall not
see you again; but you were the best companions in the world, my
friends) was driven by three drivers, of whom I was the middle one,
and the worst, having on my Livret the note 'conducteur mediocre'. But
that is neither here nor there; the story is as follows, and the moral
is that the commercial mind is illogical.

When we had gone some way, clattering through the dust, and were well
on on the Commercy road, there was a short halt, and during this halt
there passed us the largest Tun or Barrel that ever went on wheels.
You talk of the Great Tun of Heidelburg, or of those monstrous Vats
that stand in cool sheds in the Napa Valley, or of the vast barrels in
the Catacombs of Rheims; but all these are built _in situ_ and meant
to remain steady, and there is no limit to the size of a Barrel that
has not to travel. The point about this enormous Receptacle of Bacchus
and cavernous huge Prison of Laughter, was that it could move, though
cumbrously, and it was drawn very slowly by stupid, patient oxen, who
would not be hurried. On the top of it sat a strong peasant, with a
face of determination, as though he were at war with his kind, and he
kept on calling to his oxen, 'Han', and 'Hu', in the tones of a sullen
challenge, as he went creaking past. Then the soldiers began calling
out to him singly, 'Where are you off to, Father, with that battery?'
and 'Why carry cold water to Commercy? They have only too much as it
is;' and 'What have you got in the little barrelkin, the barrellet,
the canti