“An officer in the uniform of your Army, monsieur, strolled up to my company one day.  He was very pleasant, and his French was so good—­not too good, just the kind of French that you English messieurs”—­he bowed apologetically to me—­“usually speak.  Oh! he was very clever.  And he talked with our captain about the battle for a long time.  And then our captain noticed something—­two things.  First, monsieur, the English officer was very troubled with his eyes—­he was always applying a large white handkerchief to the pupil.  And it occur to the captain that the English officers do not carry white handkerchiefs but ‘khaki.’  What was the matter with the officer’s eye?  It could not be a fly—­the weather was too cold; it had been raining.  It could not be the dust; the ground was too wet.  And the German shells—­they begin to fall right in the midst of us—­they had been so wide before.  So the captain was very concerned for monsieur l’officier’s eyes, and he takes him aside very politely and says he had better see the doctor.  A sous-officier and two men shall take him to the doctor.  Which they do.  Only the ‘doctor’ was the liaison officer with our brigade—­an English officer.  And he finds that the officer is a spy—­a Bosche.  He have no more trouble with his eyes,” added the paperhanger laconically.  It was too good a story to spoil by cross-examination, so I left it at that.

“You like the bayonet?” I asked.

“Ah, yes! we love the bayonet.  It is a bon enfant,” said the sous-officier.  “And they can’t fence (escrimer), the Bosches—­they are too lourds.  I remember we caught them once in a quarry.  Our men fought like tiger-cats—­so quick, so agile.  And you know, monsieur, no one said a word.  Nor a sound except the clash of steel.”  His eyes flashed at the recollection.  “They make a funny noise when you go through them—­they grunt, comme un cochon.”  Perhaps I shuddered slightly.  “Ah, yes! monsieur, but they play such dirty tricks (ruses honteuses).  Of course they cry out in French, and put up their hands after they have shot down our comrades under their white flags.”  He gave a snort of contempt.

“What do they cry?”

“Oh, all kinds of things.  ‘I have a wife and eight children.’  The German pig has a big litter.”  He looked, and no doubt felt himself to be, a minister of justice.  And after all, I reflect, the Belgians once had wives and children too.  Many of them have neither wife nor child any longer.  And so perish all Germans!

The plumber, who had been studying his “hand,” looked up from the cards.  “We have killed a great number of the Bosches,” he said dispassionately.  “Yes, a great number.  It was in a beetroot field, and there were as many dead Germans as beetroots.  Near by was a corn-field; the flames were leaping up the shocks of yellow corn and the bodies caught fire—­such a stench!  And the faces of the dead!  Especially after they have been killed with the bayonet—­they are quite black.  I suppose it’s the grease.”