"A Boche cup's nothing special," says Pepin; "it won't stand up, it's just lumber." "You wait and see, maggot-snout," says Tirette, who is something of a psychologist. "If we attack this time, same as the adjutant seemed to hint, perhaps you'll find a Boche cup, and then it'll be something special!" "The adjutant may have said that," Eudore observes, "but he doesn't know." "It holds more than a half-pint, the Boche cup," remarks Cocon, "seeing that the exact capacity of the half-pint is marked in the cup three-quarters way up; and it's always good for you to have a big one, for if you've got a cup that only just holds a half-pint, then so that you can get your half-pint of coffee or wine or holy water or what not, it's get to be filled right up, and they don't ever do it at serving-out, and if they do, you spill it." "I believe you that they don't fill it," says Paradis, exasperated by the recollection of that ceremony. "The quartermaster-sergeant, he pours it with his blasted finger in your cup and gives it two raps on its bottom. Result, you get a third, and your cup's in mourning with three black bands on top of each other." "Yes," says Barque, "that's true; but you shouldn't have a cup too big either, because the chap that's pouring it out for you, he suspects you, and let's it go in damned drops, and so as not to give you more than your measure he gives you less, and you can whistle for it, with your tureen in your fists." Volpatte puts back in his pockets, one by one, the items of his display. When he came to the purse, he looked at it with an air of deep compassion. "He's damnably flat, poor chap!" He counted the contents. "Three francs! My boy, I must set about feathering this nest again or I shall be stony when we get back." "You're not the only one that's broken-backed in the treasury." "The soldier spends more than he earns, and don't you forget it. I wonder what'd become of a man that only had his pay?" Paradis replies with concise simplicity, "He'd kick the bucket." "And see here, look what I've got in my pocket and never let go of"--Pepin, with merry eyes, shows us some silver table-things. "They belonged," he says, "to the ugly trollop where we were quartered at Grand-Rozoy." "Perhaps they still belong to her?" Pepin made an uncertain gesture, in which pride mingled with modesty; then, growing bolder, he smiled and said, "I knew her, the old sneak. Certainly, she'll spend the rest of her life looking in every corner for her silver things." "For my part," says Volpatte, "I've never been able to rake in more than a pair of scissors. Some people have the luck. I haven't. So naturally I watch 'em close, though I admit I've no use for 'em." "I've pinched a few bits of things here and there, but what of it? The sappers have always left me behind in the matter of pinching; so what about it?" "You can do what you like, you're always got at by some one in your turn, eh, my boy? Don't fret about it."