He was silent.
"Are you going to rejoin soon?"
He shook his head abruptly and exclaimed:
"Not I!"
I looked at him; I understood. He went on in an aggressive tone:
"You won't catch me going to be knocked on the head, when I've the luck to be out of it! And you, are you itching for it, Dreher?"
"Yes, I'm going back," I said.
"Well, well! And I thought you so emancipated!" He went on ironically. He only had one skin, and he meant to stick to it; he hadn't the slightest desire to fight for Serbia, as I was saying just now.... No, it was astounding! A nice mess our diplomatists must have made of it!... All the more so since, as we suspected nothing, we naturally were not ready! And so it meant catastrophe!... We were going to get a licking!
He ended by taking me by the arm: