Would you believe it, they've not been able to pinch him for his spying proclensities! Nothing in his past life, nothing in his conductions, nothing in his expensiture, nothing to find fault with.

Mustn't he be a deep one ?" I presume to think--suppose it was all untrue?
Yet it seemed a formidable task to upset on the spot one of the oldest and most deeply rooted creeds in our town.

But I risk it.

"Perhaps he's innocent." Crillon jumps, and shouts, "What! You suspect him of being innocent!" His face is convulsed and he explodes with an enormous laugh, a laugh irresistible as a tidal wave, the laugh of all! "Talking about Termite," says Crillon a moment later, "it seems it wasn't him that did the poaching." The military convalescents are leaving the tavern.

Crillon watches them go away with their parallel movements and their sticks.
"Yes, there's wounded here and there's dead there!" he says; "all those who hadn't got a privilential situation! Ah, la, la! The poor devils, when you think of it, eh, what they must have suffered! And at this moment, all the time, there's some dying.