Sorlé looked at me without a word, and indignation made me also speechless. Not till after a quarter of an hour, when I was dressed, did I say: "Make the soup ready. I am going to the mayoralty to get my musket and cartridge-box." Then she exclaimed: "Moses, who would have believed that you would have to go and fight at your age? Oh! what misery!" And I answered: "It is the Lord's will." Then I started with a sad heart. Little Sâfel followed me. As I arrived at the corner of the market, Burguet was coming down the mayoralty steps, which swarmed with men; he had his musket on his shoulder, and said with a smile: "Ah, well, Moses! We are going to turn Maccabees in our old age?" His cheerfulness encouraged me, and I replied: "Burguet, how is it they can take rational men, heads of families, and make them destroy themselves? I cannot comprehend it; no, there is no sense in it!" "Ah," said he, "what would you have? If they can't get thrushes, they must take blackbirds." I could not smile at his pleasantries, and he said: "Come, Moses, don't be so disconsolate; this is only a formality. We have troops enough for active service; we shall have only to mount guard. If sorties are to be made, or attacks repulsed, they will not take you; you are not of an age to run, or to give a bayonet stroke! You are gray and bald. Don't be troubled!" "Yes," I said, "that is very true, Burguet, I am broken down--more so, perhaps, than you think." "That is well," said he, "but go and take your musket and cartridge-box." "And are we not going to stay in the barracks?" "No, no!" he cried, laughing aloud, "we are going to live quietly at home." He shook hands with me, and I went under the arch of the mayoralty. The stairway was crowded with people, and we heard names called out. And there, Fritz, you should have seen the looks of the Robinots, the Gourdiers, the Mariners, that mass of tilers, knife-grinders, house-painters, people who, every day, in ordinary times, would take off their caps to you to get a little work--you should have seen them straighten themselves up, look at you pityingly over the shoulder, blow in their cheeks, and call out: "Ah, Moses, is it thou? Thou wilt make a comical soldier. He! he! he! They will cut thy mustaches according to regulation!" And such-like nonsense. Yes, everything was changed; these former bullies had been named in advance sergeants, sergeant-majors, corporals, and the rest of us were nothing at all. War upsets everything; the first become last, and the last first. It is not good sense but discipline which carries the day. The man who scrubbed your floor yesterday, because he was too stupid to gain a living any other way, becomes your sergeant, and if he tells you that white is black, you must let it be so. At last, after waiting an hour, some one called out, "Moses!" and I went up. The great hall above was full of people. They all exclaimed: