y, in the most execrable French,
where he can find a field suitable for "le football"; and Private
Wilson, as he "dosses down" on the floor, suggests sleepily to Private
Jones that he will be thirsty in the afternoon and that Private Jones
has been owing him a drink since that day in Ouderdom three weeks ago.

Besides such methods of passing the time, there are baths to be had in
the great brewery vats of the village, there is an inter-company hockey
tournament to be played with a Tickler's jam tin in lieu of a ball, and,
best of all, there is the "sing-song."

Be it in a trench, or in a barn, or out in the open fields where the
battalion lies bivouacked under rows of waterproof sheets strung up as
inadequate tents, the sing-song is sure of success, and a man with a
voice like a mowing machine will receive as good a reception as would
Caruso or Melba at Covent Garden. There is a French Territorial regiment
which has a notice up at the entrance of its "music hall"--"Entree pour
Messieurs les Poilus. Prix un sourire." Admission a smile! There is
never a man turned away from its doors, for where is the "poilu" or
where is the "Tommy" who is not always ready with a smile and a laugh
and a song?

There are little incidents in life that engrave themselves deep in the
memory. Of all the sing-songs I have attended, there is one that is
still vivid--the brush of time has washed away the outlines and edges of
the others.

We were billeted, I remember, in Eliza's farm--Eliza, for the benefit of
those who do not know her, is fair, fat, fifty, and Flemish; a lady who
shakes everyone in the farm into wakefulness at five o'clock each
morning by the simple process of stepping out of bed--when the Captain
decided that we wanted "taking out of ourselves." "We'll have a
sing-song," he announced.

So the Company Sergeant-Major was called in to make arrangements, and at
eight o'clock that evening we wandered into the Orchestra Stalls. The
concert hall was a large barn with a double door in the middle which had
been opened wide to allow the admittance of a cart, which was placed in
the entrance to act as a stage. All around the high barn, and perched
precariously on the beams, were the men, while we of the Orchestra
Stalls were accommodated on chairs placed near the stage. Behind the
cart was a background consisting of Eliza and her numerous gentlemen
friends, her daughter, an old lady aged roughly a hundred, and a cow
that had no righ