ere waving their arms and
shouting into one another's faces. The American negro gave it up.

"My Gawd," he said, shaking his head as he recrossed the street and
joined his comrades, "this is shore some funny country. They got the
mos' ignorantest niggers I ever saw."

Still, those American blacks were not alone in their difficulties over
the difference in languages. I discussed the matter with one of our
white regulars who professed great experience, having spent almost one
entire day on mutual guard with a French sentry over a pile of baggage.

"You know," he said, "I don't believe these Frenchies ever will learn to
speak English."

Our veterans from Mexico and the border campaigns found that their
smattering of Spanish did not help them much. But still every one seemed
to manage to get along all right. Our soldiers and the French soldiers
in those early days couldn't understand each other's languages, but they
could understand each other.

This strange paradox was analysed for me by a young American Lieutenant
who said he had made a twelve-hour study of the remarkable camaraderie
that had immediately sprung up between the fighting men of France and
the fighting men of America. In explaining this relationship, he said:

"You see, we think the French are crazy," he said, "and the French know
damn well we are."

Those of our men who had not brought small French and English
dictionaries with them, made hurried purchases of such handy articles
and forthwith began to practice. The French people did likewise.

I saw one young American infantryman seated at a table in front of one
of the sidewalk cafes on the village square. He was dividing his
attention between a fervent admiration of the pretty French waitress,
who stood smiling in front of him, and an intense interest in the pages
of his small hand dictionary.

She had brought his glass of beer and he had paid for it, but there
seemed to be a mutual urge for further conversation. The American would
look first at her and then he would look through the pages of the book
again. Finally he gave slow and painful enunciation of the following
request:

"Mad-am-moy-sell, donnie moy oon baysa."

She laughed prettily as she caught his meaning almost immediately, and
she replied:

"Doughboy, ware do you get zat stuff?"

"Aw, Hell," said the young Infantryman, as he closed the book with a
snap. "I knew they'd let those sailors ashore before us."

From the very first