There seemed about 'em almost a
sort o' willingness to learn that put 'em in a class by themselves.
I sez to the interpreter, 'There's something odd about that lot. You
find out what it is;' which he does. And what do you think it was?
_They was convicts_. All men in for a long term, what had served five
years and more o' their sentences and was let out to fight.
"It seemed to me at first the rummiest thing that ever I see. But I've
thought it over and thought it over, and now it's as clear as day.
When the Bosch is kept in a watertight compartment for a bit, he
gets back to being more or less of a human being. His whole trouble's
really through being surrounded by other Bosches. They get tellin'
each other what a great nation they are, and how they was born to
inherit the earth, and that it's only forestalling nature a bit to go
and take it now, and so on--each going one better than the last. They
keep on contaminatin' one another till what do you get? Why, me and
you spending our old age a-teaching of 'em humility.
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