"What?"
"This war business. Why, I keep thinking I'm going to meet the rabbit who put butter in his watch round every corner."
"It was the best butter."
"That's the hell of it."
"When's your section leaving here?" asked Martin, picking up the conversation after a pause during which they'd both stared out into the rain. They could hear almost constantly the grinding roar of camions on the road behind the café and the slither of their wheels through the mud-puddles where the road turned into the village.
"How the devil should I know?"
"Somebody had dope this morning that we'd leave here for Soissons to-morrow." Martin's words tailed off into a convictionless mumble.
"It surely is different than you'd pictured it, isn't it, now?"
They sat looking at each other while the big drops from the leaky roof smacked on the table or splashed cold in their faces.
"What do you think of all this, anyway?" said the wet man suddenly, lowering his voice stealthily.