s-and-ammunition millionaire
would give half a million dollars for it. The hallway was smoke-
blackened and a burnt spot showed where the enemy had tried to set
it on fire before evacuating the town. Ascending a handsome old
staircase, we were in rooms with gilded mirrors and carved mantels,
where we were introduced to His Honour, a lively man of some forty
years.

"I have been in Amerique two months. So much English do I speak.
No more!" said the mayor merrily, and introduced us in turn to his
wife, who spoke not even "so much" English, but French as fast and
as piquantly as none but a Frenchwoman can. Her only son, who was
seventeen, was going up with the 1916 class of recruits very soon.
He was a sturdy youngster; a type of Young France who will make
the France of the future.

"You hate to see him go?" I asked.

"It is for France!" she answered.

We had cakes and tea and a merrier--at least, a more heartfelt--party
than at any mayor's reception in time of peace. Everybody talked. For
the French do know how to talk, when they have not turned grim,
silent soldiers. I heard story on story of the German occupation; and
how the mayor was put in jail and held as a hostage; and what a
German general said to him when he was brought in as a prisoner to
be interrogated in his own house, which the general occupied as
headquarters.

Among the guests was the wife of a French general in her Red Cross
cap. She might see her husband once a week by meeting him on the
road between the city and the front. He could not afford to be any
farther from his post, lest the Germans spring a surprise. The extent
of the information which he gave her was that all went well for France.
Father Joffre plays no favourites in his discipline.

Happy, happy Lorraine in the midst of its ruins! Happy because her
adored tricolour floats over those ruins.

XIII
A Road Of War I Know

Other armies go to war across the land, but the British go across the
sea. They take the Channel ferry in order to reach the front. Theirs is
the home road of war to me; the road of my affections, where men
speak my mother tongue. It begins on the platform at Victoria Station,
with the khaki of officers and men, returning from leave, relieved by
the warmer colours of women who have come to say good-bye to
those they love. In five hours from the time of starting one may be
across that ribbon of salt water, which means much in isolation and
little in distanc