iness that was in psychological
contrast to the attitude of the obese civilian.

"Anglais?" asked the Norman.

The civilian watched for my answer.

"Non--Americain," I replied.

"Tiens," they said politely.

"Do you speak English?" asked the homely one.

"Yes," I answered.

The Norman fished a creased dirty letter and a slip of paper from his
wallet and handed them to me for inspection.

"I found them in a trench we shared with the English," he explained.
"These puttees are English; a soldier gave them to me." He exhibited his
legs with a good deal of satisfaction.

I examined the papers that had been given me. The first was a medical
prescription for an anti-lice ointment and the second an illiterate
letter extremely difficult to decipher, mostly about somebody whom the
writer was having trouble to manage, "now that you aren't here." I
translated as well as I could for an attentive audience. "Toujours les
totos," they cried merrily when I explained the prescription. A spirit
of good-fellowship pervaded the compartment, till even the suspicious
civilian unbent, and handed round post-card photographs of his two sons
who were somewhere en Champagne. Not a one of the three soldiers could
have been much over twenty-one, but they were not boys, but men, serious
men, tried and disciplined by war. The homely one gave me one of his
many medals which he wore "to please the good Sisters"; on one side in
an oval of seven stars was the Virgin Mary, and on the other, the
determined features of General Joffre.

Just at sundown we crossed the great plain of La Beauce. Distant
villages and pointed spires stood silhouetted in violet-black against
the burning midsummer sky and darkness was falling upon the sweeping
golden plain. We passed hamlet after hamlet closed and shuttered, though
the harvests had been gathered and stacked. There was something very
tragic in those deserted, outlying farms. The train began to rattle
through the suburbs of Paris. By the window stood the Norman looking out
on the winking red and violet lights of the railroad yard. "This Paris?"
he asked. "I never expected to see Paris. How the war sets one to
traveling!"

Chapter 2

An Unknown Paris in the Night and Rain

It was Sunday morning, the bells were ringing to church, and I was
strolling in the gardens of the Tuileries. A bright morning sun was
drying the dewy lawns and the wet marble bodies of the gods and
athletes, the leaves on