"You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs," said Peterkin,
quoting high authority. "Some have to be killed."

"The last I heard from home my wife and one of the children were sick
and my employer had gone bankrupt," broke in the very tired voice rather
irrelevantly.

"Yes, my father's last letter was pretty blue about business," said the
banker's son. He was looking at his dirty hands. The odor of clothes
unlaundered for weeks, in which the men had slept, tortured his
sensitive nostrils. "A millionaire and filthy as swine in a sty!" he
exclaimed. "Digging like a navvy in order to get admission to the
abattoir!"

"Were there any reserves coming our way?" asked the barber's son.

"Yes, masses."

"Perhaps they will relieve us and we'll go into the reserves for a
while," suggested the very tired voice.

"No fear!" growled Pilzer.

"They have called out the old men, the fellows of forty-five to fifty,
who were supposed to be out of it for good," said the judge's son.
"Westerling says they are to guard prisoners and property when we cross
the range and start on the march to the Browns' capital. Then all the
other men can be on the firing-line and force the war to a mercifully
quick end with a minimum loss. I saw numbers of them just arriving at La
Tir, footsore and limping."

"I know. Mine's been indoor work, making paints," said the very tired
voice. "When you've had long hours in the shop and had to sit up late
with sick babies, you aren't fit for marching. And I think I've got
lead-poisoning."

"Whew!" The judge's son put his hand over his nose as a breeze sprang up
from the direction of the Brown lines.

"I thought we got them all," said the barber's son.

"Must have missed one that was buried by a shell and another shell must
have dug him up!" muttered Pilzer, glaring at the barber's son. "It's
not nice on people with ladylike nostrils. James, get the _eau de
cologne_ and draw his bath for our plutocrat!"

"You see, something had to be done about the dead between the redoubts,"
explained the barber's son, "though the officers on both sides were
against it."

"Naturally. It afforded opportunities for observation," put in Peterkin,
repeating the colonel's words.

"But finally it was agreed to let a dozen from either side go out
without arms," the barber's son concluded.

"I heard there was great complaint from the women," went on the judge's
son. "Women aren't like what they were in the last wa