e you every day, if only a few paragraphs, and posted our
letters at the end of a week. You said those letters were your "magic
carpet," on which you travelled with us. Poor Padre, you'd no time nor
money for other travelling! You never saw France, till the war called
you. And after a few bleak months, that other great call came. I shall
write to you about France, and about myself, as I should have written if
you were back at home.

First--about myself! A few pages ago I said that there was no one alive
who could prove me a liar, to the Becketts or Brian: that I was
"safe--brutally safe." Well, I was mistaken. I am _not_ safe. But I will
go back to our start.

Everyone warned the Becketts that they would get no automobile, no
essence, and no chauffeur. Yet they got all three, as magically as
Cinderella got her coach and four. The French authorities played fairy
godmother, and waved a wand. Why not, when in return so much was to be
done for France?

The wand gave a permit for the whole front (counting in the American
front!) from Lorraine to Flanders. It produced a big gray car, and a
French soldier to drive it. The soldier has only one leg: but he can do
more with that one than most men with two. Thus we set forth on the
journey Brian planned, the Becketts so grateful--poor darlings--for our
company, that it was hard to realize that I didn't _belong_.

It was a queer thought that we should be taking the road to Germany--we,
of all people: yet every road that leads east from Paris leads to
Germany. And it was a wonderful thought, that we should be going to the
Marne.

Surely generations must pass before that name can be heard, even by
children, without a thrill! We said it over and over in the car: "The
Marne--the Marne! We shall see the Marne, this autumn of 1917."

Meanwhile the road was a dream-road. It had the unnatural quietness of
dreams. In days of peace it would have been choked with country carts
bringing food to fill the wide-open mouth of Paris. Now, the way to the
capital was silent and empty, save for gray military motors and
lumbering army _camions_. The cheap bowling alleys and jerry-built
restaurants of the suburbs seemed under a spell of sleep. There were no
men anywhere, except the very old, and boys of the "class" of next year.
Women swept out the gloomy shops: women drove omnibuses: women hawked
the morning papers. Outside Paris we were stopped by soldiers, appearing
from sentry-boxes: our pape