Carfax ran over his cards, rejected three, and nodded. "Well, let him yell," he said.
"What is it, a Boche dicky-bird insulting you?" asked Gary, in his Yankee drawl.
Flint, declining to draw cards, got up and went out into the sunshine. When he returned to the table, he said: "It's a cuckoo.... I wish to God I were out of this," he added.
They continued to play for a while without apparent interest. Each man had won his comrades' money too many times to care when Carfax added up debit and credit and wrote down each man's score. In nine months, alternately beggaring one another, they had now, it appeared, broken about even.
Gary, an American in British uniform, twitched a newspaper toward himself, slouched in his chair, and continued to read for a while. The paper was French and two weeks old; he jerked it about irritably.
Gray, resting his elbows on his knees, sat gazing vacantly out of the narrow window. For a smart officer he had grown slovenly.
"If there was any trout fishing to be had," he began; but Flint laughed scornfully.
"What are you laughing at? There must be trout in the valley down there where that bird is," insisted Gray, reddening.
"Yes, and there are cows and chickens and houses and women. What of it?"
Gary, in his faded service uniform of a captain, scowled over his newspaper. "It's bad enough to be here," he said heavily; "so don't let's talk about it. Quit disputing."