ns his catch
and goes out of the garden. Difference, I suppose, between a
thoroughbred sport and, well, a common cat.

I could fill a volume with stories about these cats. Don't worry. I shall
not.

You ask me if I have a dog. Yes, a big black Caniche named Dick, a
good watch-dog, but too fond of playing. I call him an "india-rubber
dog," because when he is demanding' a frolic, or asking to have a
stone thrown for him--his idea of happiness--he jumps up and down
on his four stiff legs exactly like a toy woolly dog on an elastic.

He is a good dog to walk with, and loves to "go." He is very obedient
on the road for that reason--knows if he is naughty he can't go next
time.

So now you have the household complete. I'll warrant you won't be
content. If you are not, there is no satisfying you. When I pour all my
political dreams on paper, and shout on to my machine all my
disappointments over the attitude of Washington, you take offence.
So what can I do? I cannot send you letters full of stirring adventures.
I don't have any. I can't write you dramatic things about the war. It is
not dramatic here, and that is as strange to me as it seems to be to
you.

XVII

October 3, 1915

We have been as near to getting enthusiastically excited as we have
since the war began.

Just when everyone had a mind made up that the Allies could not be
ready to make their first offensive movement until next spring--
resigned to know that it would not be until after a year and a half, and
more, of war that we could see our armies in a position to do more
than continue to repel the attacks of the enemy--we all waked up on
September 27 to the unexpected news that an offensive movement
of the French in Champagne had actually begun on the 25th, and
was successful.

For three or four days the suspense and the hope alternated. Every
day there was an advance, an advance that seemed to be supported
by the English about Loos, and all the time we heard at intervals the
far-off pounding of the artillery.

For several days our hearts were high. Then there began to creep
into the papers hints that it had been a gallant advance, but not a
great victory, and far too costly, and that there had been blunders,
and we all settled back with the usual philosophy, studied the map of
our first-line trenches on September 25, when the attack began,--
running through Souain and Perthes, Mesnil, Massiges, and Ville sur
Tourbe. We compared it wit