y presented himself before the Official
Interpreter, greeted him with a genial salute and waited
throughout his opening speech, which was in French and contained
many inquiries.

My friend made no endeavour to follow these simple questions. He
knew he couldn't succeed and had no intention of giving himself
away by an attempt. Advancing towards the Interpreter's table
and putting his right hand to his ear, "Pardon, monsieur," he
said, "mais je suis un peu sourd, depuis mon accident."

"Quel accident?" said the Interpreter; after which my friend did
not stop talking until he was passed out with a "French,
garrulous."

We met quite recently and talked over things in general, telling
each other, in confidence and on the best authority, all those
exciting details of the progress of the War which men go on
saying and believing until they are officially contradicted.
Getting down to realities, he told me that he has now the
greatest difficulty in believing in the War at all, though he is
within ear-shot of it all the time. His difficulty is due to the
last thing he saw before he left his office: three men standing
at his gate, in that attitude of contented and contemplative
leisure which one associates with Saturday afternoons and
village pumps, looking at nothing in particular and spitting
thoughtfully as occasion required. One of them was a British
soldier, one a French soldier and one a German soldier. The
whole picture suggested anything but war; if there was a war on,
which nation was fighting against which? My friend, however, is
somewhat oddly situated in this respect, since he commands for
the moment a detachment of German prisoners in our back area.
Some of them, he tells me, are extraordinarily smart. One
Prussian N.C.O. in particular was remarkable. Dressed in his
impressive overcoat, hatted for all the world like our Staff and
carrying under his arm his dapper cane, this N.C.O. went round
from group to group of working prisoners, accompanying the
English sergeant in charge of the party and interpreting the
latter's orders to the men. So striking was his get-up that all
paused to look at him.

Thinking it might please you, my friend showed me an official
memo., which he had just received from one of his officers in
command of an outlying detachment, and of