ther people's."

Some amused faces were raised while he entered into observations that
they foresaw would be endless.

"Pay attention, you fellows, he's going to talk about militarism,"
announced a wag, called Pinson, whose lively wit I had already noticed.

"There's the question of militarism----" Termite went on.

We laughed to see the hairy mannikin floundering on the dim straw in
the middle of his big public-meeting words, and casting fantastic
shadows on the spider-web curtain of the skylight.

"Are you going to tell us," asked one of us, "that the Boches aren't
militarists?"

"Yes, indeed, and in course they are," Termite consented to admit.

"Ha! That bungs you in the optic!" Pinson hastened to record.

"For my part, old sonny," said a Territorial who was a good soldier,
"I'm not seeking as far as you, and I'm not as spiteful. I know that
they set about us, and that we only wanted to be quiet and friends with
everybody. Why, where I come from, for instance in the Creuse country,
I know that----"

"You know?" bawled Termite, angrily; "you know nothing about nothing!
You're only a poor little tame animal, like all the millions of pals.
They gather us together, but they separate us. They say what they like
to us, or they don't say it, and you believe it. They say to you,
'This is what you've got to believe in!' They----"

I found myself growing privately incensed against Termite, by the same
instinct which had once thrown me upon his accomplice Brisbille. I
interrupted him. "Who are they--your 'they'?"

"Kings," said Termite.

At that moment Marcassin's silhouette appeared in the gray of the alley
which ended among us. "Look out--there's Marc'! Shut your jaw," one
of the audience benevolently advised.

"I'm not afeared not to say what I think!" declared Termite, instantly
lowering his voice and worming his way through the straw that divided
the next stall from ours.

We laughed again. But Margat was serious. "Always," he said,
"there'll be the two sorts of people there's always been--the grousers
and the obeyers."

Some one asked, "What for did you chap 'list?"

"'Cos there was nothing to eat in the house," answered the Territorial,
as interpreter of the general opinion.

Having thus spoken, the old soldier yawned, went on all fours, arranged
the straw of his claim, and added, "We'll not worry, but just let him
be. 'Specially seeing we can't do otherwise."

It was time for slumber