--so pat and
oratorically French.

I flung the Stars and Stripes to the French breezes on the 7th in
honor of the rupture. It was the first time the flag has been unfurled
since Captain Simpson ordered the corporal to take it down two years
ago the third of last September. I had a queer sensation as I saw it
flying over the gate again, and thought of all that had happened since
the little corporal of the King's Own Yorks took it down,--and the
Germans still only forty-two miles away.

XXXV

February 26, 1917

What do you suppose I have done since I last wrote to you?

I have actually been to the theatre for the first time in four years.
Would you ever have believed that I could keep out of the theatre
such a long time as that? Still, I suppose going to the theatre--to a
sort of variety show--seems to you, who probably continue to go once
or twice a week, a tame experience. Well, you can go to the opera,
which I can't do if I like, but you can't see the heroes of Verdun not
only applauding a show, but giving it, and that is what I have been
doing not only once but twice since I wrote you.

I am sure that I have told you that our ambulance is in the salle de
recreation of the commune, which is a small rectangular room with a
stage across one end. It is the only thing approaching a theatre which
the commune boasts. It is well lighted, with big windows in the sides,
and a top-light over the stage. It is almost new, and the walls and
pointed ceiling are veneered with some Canadian wood, which looks
like bird's-eye maple, but isn't.

It is in that hall that the matinees, which are given every other Sunday
afternoon, take place. They are directed by a lieutenant-colonel, who
goes into it with great enthusiasm, and really gets up a first-class
programme.

The boys do all the hard work, and the personnel of the ambulance
aids and abets with great good humor, though it is very upsetting. But
then it is for the army--and what the army wants these days, it must
have.

Luckily the men in our ambulance just now are either convalescent,
or, at any rate, able to sit up in bed and bear excitement. So the beds
of the few who cannot be dressed are pushed close to the stage, and
around their cots are the chairs and benches of their convalescent
comrades. The rest of the beds are taken out. The big military band is
packed into one corner of the room. Chairs are put in for the officers
of the staff and their few invi