its glory on the afternoon when I invited to tea a lady who was
going to sing for the men in one of my camps.

I think that all Madame's lodgers loved her, though I doubt if any of
them loved her as dearly as I did. Letters used to arrive for her
from different parts of the war area conveying news of the officers
who had lodged with her. She always brought them to me to translate.
I fear she was not much wiser afterwards. She never answered any of
them. Nor has she ever answered me, though I should greatly like to
hear how she, Monsieur, Marie, Fifi, and Turque are getting on.
Turque was a large dog, the only member of the household who was not
extremely old.

CHAPTER XIII

"THE CON. CAMP"

We always spoke of it, affectionately and proudly, as "the Con.
Camp." The abbreviation was natural enough, for "convalescent" is a
mouthful of a word to say, besides being very difficult to spell. I
have known a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England come to
grief over the consonants of the last two syllables in addressing an
envelope to me; and there was a story of a very august visitor, asked
to write in an album, who inquired about a vowel and was given the
wrong one by one of the staff. If those doubtful spellers had known
our pleasant abbreviation they would have escaped disaster.

To us the "Con." justified itself from every point of view. I am not
sure that we had an equal right to the conceited use of the definite
article. There are other "Con." camps in France, many of them. We
spoke of them by their numbers. Ours had a number too, but we rarely
used it. We were _The_ Con. Camp. Our opinion was no doubt
prejudiced; but the authorities seemed to share it. The Con. Camp was
one of the show places of the British Army. Distinguished visitors
were always brought there.

The Government, the War Office, or whoever it is who settles such
things, encourages distinguished visitors to inspect the war. There
is a special officer set apart to conduct tourists from place to
place and to show them the things they ought to see. He is provided
with several motor-cars, a nice chateau, and a good cook. This is
sensible. If you want a visitor to form a favourable opinion of
anything, war, industry, or institution, you must make him fairly
comfortable and feed him well.

Yet I think that the life of that officer was a tiresome one. There
was very little variety in his programme. He showed the same things
over and over ag