“Yes,” says Barque, “that’s true; but you shouldn’t have a cup too big either, because the chap that’s pouring it out for you, he suspects you, and let’s it go in damned drops, and so as not to give you more than your measure he gives you less, and you can whistle for it. with your tureen in your fists.”

Volpatte puts back in his pockets, one by one, the items of his display.  When he came to the purse, he looked at it with an air of deep compassion.

“He’s damnably flat, poor chap!” He counted the contents.  “Three francs!  My boy, I most set about feathering this nest again or I shall be stony when we get back.”

“You’re not the only one that’s broken-backed in the treasury.”

“The soldier spends more than he earns, and don’t you forget it.  I wonder what’d become of a man that only had his pay?”

Paradis replies with concise simplicity, “He’d kick the bucket.”

“And see here, look what I’ve got in my pocket and never let go of”—­Pepin, with merry eyes, shows us some silver table-things.  “They belonged,” he says, “to the ugly trollop where we were quartered at Grand-Rozoy.”

“Perhaps they still belong to her?”

Pepin made an uncertain gesture, in which pride mingled with modesty; then, growing bolder, he smiled and said, “I knew her, the old sneak.  Certainly, she’ll spend the rest of her life looking in every corner for her silver things.”

“For my part,” says Volpatte, “I’ve never been able to rake in more than a pair of scissors.  Some people have the luck.  I haven’t.  So naturally I watch ’em close, though I admit I’ve no use for ’em.”

“I’ve pinched a few bits of things here and there, but what of it?  The sappers have always left me behind in the matter of pinching; so what about it?”

“You can do what you like, you’re always got at by some one in your turn, eh, my boy?  Don’t fret about it.”

“I keep my wife’s letters,” says Blaire.

“And I send mine back to her.”

“And I keep them, too.  Here they are.”  Eudore exposes a packet of worn and shiny paper, whose grimy condition the twilight modestly veils.  “I keep them.  Sometimes I read them again.  When I’m cold and humpy, I read ’em again.  It doesn’t actually warm you up, but it seems to.”

There must be a deep significance in the curious expression, for several men raise their heads and say, “Yes, that’s so.”

By fits and starts the conversation goes on in the bosom of this fantastic barn and the great moving shadows that cross it; night is heaped up in its corners, and pointed by a few scattered and sickly candles.

I watch these busy and burdened flitters come and go, outline themselves strangely, then stoop and slide down to the ground; they talk to themselves and to each other. their feet are encumbered by the litter.  They are showing their riches to each other.  “Tiens, look!”—­“Great!” they reply enviously.