etings with old friends and visits to
well-remembered haunts of the Paris one knew before August 1914.
Instead, the wearing discomforts of the journey are likely to retain
chief hold upon the memory. Can I ever forget how we waited seven hours
for a train due at 9.25 P.M. at a station that possessed no forms to
sit upon, so that some of the men lay at full length and slept on the
asphalt platform? And is there not a corner of my memory for the
crawling fusty leave-train that had bare planks nailed across the door
spaces of some of the "officers'" compartments; a train so packed that
we three officers took turns on the one spare seat in an "other ranks"
carriage? And then about 8 A.M. we landed at a well-known "all-change"
siding, a spot of such vivid recollections that some one had pencilled
in the ablution-house, "If the Huns ever take ---- Camp and have to
hold it they'll give up the war in disgust."

But in the queue of officers waiting at the Y.M.C.A. hut for tea and
boiled eggs was the brigade-major of a celebrated Divisional Artillery.
He stood in front of me looking bored and dejected. I happened to pass
him a cup of tea. As he thanked me he asked, "Aren't you fed up with
this journey? Let's see the R.T.O. and inquire about a civilian train!"
"If you'll take me under your wing, sir," I responded quickly. So we
entered Paris by a fast train,--as did my two companions of the night
before, who had followed my tip of doing what I did without letting
outsiders see that there was collusion.

The brigade-major's wife was awaiting him in Paris, and I dined with
them at the Ritz and took them to lunch next day at Henry's, where the
frogs' legs were delicious and the chicken a recompense for that
night-mare of a train journey. Viel's was another restaurant which
retained a proper touch of the Paris before the war--perfect cooking,
courtly waiting, and prices not too high. I have pleasant recollections
also of Fouquet's in the Champs Elysees, and of an almost divine meal
at the Tour d'Argent, on the other side of the river, where Frederic of
the Ibsen whiskers used once to reign: the delicacy of the _soufflee_
of turbot! the succulent tenderness of the _caneton a la presse_! the
seductive flavour of the raspberries and whipped cream!

The French Government apparently realise that the famous restaurants of
Paris are a national asset. There was no shortage of waiters; and,
though the choice of dishes was much more limited t