But in every walk of life there must be good people, and the good people ought to understand each other in a crisis like this.

Don't you think so, Boss ?" The war coincided with his socialistic tendencies.

Before this, when speaking of future revolution, he had felt a malign pleasure in imagining all the rich deprived of their fortunes and having to work in order to exist.

Now he was equally enthusiastic at the thought that all Frenchmen would share the same fate without class distinction.
"All with knapsacks on their backs and eating at mess." And he was even extending this military sobriety to those who remained behind the army.

War was going to cause great scarcity of provisions, and all would have to come down to very plain fare.
"You, too, Boss, who are too old to go to war--you, with all your millions, will have to eat the same as I..