d to
inform the army that the enemy's casualties in the last three days had
been two hundred thousand! Immediately everybody was talking at once in
Stransky's parliament, as he sometimes called that company of which he
was, in the final analysis, unlimited monarch.

"How do they know?"

"Do you think it's fake?"

"That sums up to pretty near a million!"

"My God! Think of it--a million!"

"We're whittling them down!"

"It doesn't make any difference whether Partow or Lanstron is chief of
staff!"

"They're paying!"

"Paying for our fellows that they've killed! Paying for being in the
wrong!"

"Let's have the song again! Come on!"

"Yes, the song! The song!"

"No; hold on!" cried Tom. "Not because men are killed!"

"That's right, that's right!" said Stransky. "After all, they're our
brothers." It was the first time since he had undergone the
transformation which the war had wrought in him that he had mentioned
any of his world-brotherhood ideas. "I still believe in that. We're
fighting for that!" he concluded.

With the ready change of subject of soldiers who have been long in
company, they were soon talking about other things--things that
concerned the living.

"Say, wouldn't I like a real bath--an altogether!"

"And plenty of soap all over!"

"A welter of lather from head to foot and blowing bubbles from between
my lips!"

"And to shave off this beard!"

"Think of the beards that are going when the war is over!"

"Not if you can't grow any more than John!"

"I'm not fighting out of ambush like you!" replied John. "I haven't got
a place for the birds to nest!"

"I'm going to trim mine down gradually," said another; "first an
imperial and mustache with mutton choppers; then mow my cheeks; then a
great, sweeping mustache; then a dandy little mustache; then--"

"Mow is the word! Don't inflict a barber!"

"And, after the bath, clean underclothes, and, oh, me!--a home dinner!"

"Stop with your home dinners! That's barred. Army biscuits!"

"Yes, we all prefer army biscuits!"

"We wouldn't touch a home dinner!"

Stransky, his eyes drawing inward in their characteristic slant, was
well pleased with his company, and the scattered exclamatory badinage
kept on until it was interrupted by the arrival of the mail. Partow and
Lanstron, understanding their machine as human in its elements, had
chosen that the army should hear from home.

"How's this!" exclaimed one man, reading from a newspaper. "