Volpatte's neighbor shook his head under the torrents that fell from heaven and said, "So much the better for them."
"I'm not crazy—" Volpatte began again.
"P'raps, but you're not fair."
Volpatte felt himself insulted by the word. He started, and raised his head furiously, and the rain, that was waiting for the chance, took him plump in the face. "Not fair—me? Not fair—to those dung-hills?"
"Exactly, monsieur," the neighbor replied; "I tell you that you play hell with them and yet you'd jolly well like to be in the rotters' place."
"Very likely—but what does that prove, rump-face? To begin with, we, we've been in danger, and it ought to be our turn for the other. But they're always the same, I tell you; and then there's young men there, strong as bulls and poised like wrestlers, and then—there are too many of them! D'you hear? It's always too many, I say, because it is so."
"Too many? What do you know about it, vilain? These departments and committees, do you know what they are?"
"I don't know what they are," Volpatte set off again, "but I know—"
"Don't you think they need a crowd to keep all the army's affairs going?"
"I don't care a damn, but—"