Billy shuffled a little uneasily. “There’s a girl,” he said, “one girl partikler, that might like to ’ear, and there’s maybe two or three others that I’d like to tell about it. You’ll know the sort of thing to say. I’ll give you the names, and you might tell ’em”--he hesitated a moment--“I know, ‘the last word he spoke was Rose--or Gladys, or Mary,’ sendin’ the Rose one to Rose, and so on, of course.” Arundel grinned, and Pug guffawed openly. “What a lark,” he laughed, “if Larry mixes ’em up and tells Rose the last word you says was ‘Gladys,’ and tells Gladys that you faded away murmurin’ ‘Good-by, Rose.’” “I don’t see anythin’ to laugh at,” said Billy huffily. “Rose is the partikler one, so you might put in a bit extra in hers, but it will please the others a whole heap. They don’t know each other, so they will never know I sent the other messages, and I’ll bet that each of ’em will cart that letter round to show it to all her pals, and they’ll cry their eyes out, and have a real enjoyable time over it.” Arundel laughed now. “Queer notions your girls have of enjoyment, Billy,” he said. “I know ’em,” insisted Billy; “and I’m right about it. I knew a girl once that was goin’ to be married to a chum o’ mine, and he ups and dies, and the girl ’ad to take the tru-sox back to the emporium and swop it for mournin’; and the amount of fussin’ and cryin’-over that girl got was somethin’ amazin’, and I bet she wouldn’t have missed it for half a dozen ’usbands; and, besides, she got another ’usband easy enough about two months after.” He concluded triumphantly, and looked round as if challenging contradiction. Outside, the battery crashed again, and the crazy building shook about them to the sound. A curious silence followed the salvo, because by some chance the ranked batteries, strung out to either side of them, had chosen the same interval between their firing. Most of the men in the barn had by this time sunk to sleep, but at the silence they stirred uneasily, and many of them woke and raised themselves on their elbows, or sat up to inquire sleepily “What was wrong now?” or “What was the matter?” With the adaptability under which men live in the fire zone, and without which, in fact, they could hardly live and keep their senses, they had in the space of an hour or two become so accustomed to the noise of the cannonade that its cessation had more power to wake them than its noisiest outbursts; and when, after the silence had lasted a few brief minutes, the batteries began to speak again, they turned over or lay down and slid off into heedless sleep.