"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.