ly hot day."

"All the better for an omelette appetite."

I thought of the omelettes in the tea shop of Poperinghe, and I knew
that I was lost. "Can't you get horses?" I asked.

"No luck. The transport has to shift to-day and there's nothing doing in
that line. I asked just before lunch."

The omelettes danced up and down before my eyes until the intervening
miles over hard cobble stones dwindled to nothing. "All right," I said.
"Will you go and get leave for us? I'll be ready in a minute." And I
went off to borrow some money from Jackson with which to pay for my
omelettes.

The church tower of Poperinghe shimmered in the heat and seemed to
beckon us on along the straight road that led through the miles of flat
country, relieved here and there by stretches of great hop poles or by
little red-roofed farms where lounged figures in khaki.

In every field grazed dozens of horses and in every lane were
interminable lines of motor lorries, with greasy-uniformed men crawling
about underneath them or sleeping on the seats. In one place, a
perspiring "Tommy" hurried round a farmyard on his hands and knees, and
barked viciously for the benefit of a tiny fair-haired girl and a filthy
fox-terrier puppy; and right above him swung a "sausage" gleaming in the
sunlight. Just outside Poperinghe we met company after company of men,
armed with towels, waiting by the roadside for baths in the brewery,
and, as we passed, one old fellow, who declared that his "rheumatics was
that bad he couldn't wash," was trying to sell a brand-new cake of soap
for the promise of a drink.

The sun was hot in the sky, and the paving, than which nothing on earth
is more tiring, seemed rougher and harder than usual; motor lorries, or
cars containing generals, seemed, at every moment, to compel us to take
to the ditch, and we were hot and footsore when we tramped through the
Grande Place to the tea shop.

But here we were doomed to disappointment, for not a chair was
vacant--"Not room for a flea," as Madame explained to us, and we had to
curb our appetites as best we could.

The tea shop at Poperinghe! Where could you hope to find a more popular
spot than was the tea shop in the early part of 1915? Where could you
get better omelettes served by a more charming little waitress?--was she
really charming, I wonder, or did she merely seem so _faute de mieux_?
Where could you find a nicer place to meet your friends from other
regiments, to drink coffee, t