dark streets, and at
last stopped at a blue-lighted door.

"Here it is; push in."

"But there are two gentlemen and a lady already in the box, meester."

"No matter, there'll be room." The Englishman waved the ticket in the
air.

The little round man with a round red face who was taking the tickets
stuttered in bad English and then dropped into French. Meanwhile, the
whole party had filed in, leaving the Englishman, who kept waving the
ticket in the little man's face.

Two gendarmes, the theatre guards, came up menacingly; the Englishman's
face wreathed itself in smiles; he linked an arm in each of the
gendarmes', and pushed them towards the bar.

"Come drink to the Entente Cordiale.... Vive la France!"

In the box were two Australians and a woman who leaned her head on the
chest of one and then the other alternately, laughing so that you could
see the gold caps in her black teeth.

They were annoyed at the intrusion that packed the box insupportably
tight, so that the woman had to sit on the men's laps, but the air soon
cleared in laughter that caused people in the orchestra to stare angrily
at the box full of noisy men in khaki. At last the Englishman came,
squeezing himself in with a finger mysteriously on his lips. He plucked
at Martin's arm, a serious set look coming suddenly over his grey eyes.
"It was like this"--his breath laden with whisky was like a halo round
Martin's head--"the Hun was a nice little chap, couldn't 'a' been more
than eighteen; had a shoulder broken and he thought that my pal was
fixing the pillow. He said 'Thank you' with a funny German accent....
Mind you, he said 'Thank you'; that's what hurt. And the man laughed.
God damn him, he laughed when the poor devil said 'Thank you.' And the
grenade blew him to hell."

The stage was a glare of light in Martin's eyes; he felt as he had when
at home he had leaned over and looked straight into the headlight of an
auto drawn up to the side of the road. Screening him from the glare were
the backs of people's heads: Tom Randolph's head and his girl's, side by
side, their cheeks touching, the pointed red chin of one of the
Australians and the frizzy hair of the other woman.

In the entr'acte they all stood at the bar, where it was very hot and an
orchestra was playing and there were many men in khaki in all stages of
drunkenness, being led about by women who threw jokes at each other
behind the men's backs.

"Here's to mud," said one of the