.
I think I _must_ be going mad to-day."

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

If there is one man in France whom I do not envy it is the G.H.Q.
Weather Prophet. I can picture the unfortunate wizard sitting in his
bureau, gazing into a crystal, _Old Moore's Almanack_ in one hand, a
piece of seaweed in the other, trying to guess what tricks the weather
will be up to next.

For there is nothing this climate cannot do. As a quick-change artist
it stands _sanspareil_ (French) and _nulli secundus_ (Latin).

And now it seems to have mislaid the Spring altogether. Summer has
come at one stride. Yesterday the staff-cars smothered one with mud
as they whirled past; to-day they choke one with dust. Yesterday the
authorities were issuing precautions against frostbite; to-day they
are issuing precautions against sunstroke. Nevertheless we are not
complaining. It will take a lot of sunshine to kill us; we like it,
and we don't mind saying so.

The B.E.F. has cast from it its mitts and jerkins and whale-oil,
emerged from its subterranean burrows into the open, and in every wood
a mushroom town of bivouacs has sprung up over-night. Here and there
amateur gardeners have planted flower-beds before their tents; one of
my corporals is nursing some radishes in an ammunition-box and talks
crop prospects by the hour. My troop-sergeant found two palm-plants in
the ruins of a chateau glass-house, and now has them standing sentry
at his bivouac entrance. He sits between them after evening stables,
smoking his pipe and fancying himself back in Zanzibar; he expects the
coker-nuts along about August, he tells me.

Summer has come, and on every slope graze herds of winter-worn
gun-horses and transport mules. The new grass has gone to the heads
of the latter and they make continuous exhibitions of themselves,
gambolling about like ungainly lambkins and roaring with unholy
laughter. Summer has come, and my groom and countryman has started to
whistle again, sure sign that Winter is over, for it is only during
the Summer that he reconciles himself to the War. War, he admits,
serves very well as a light gentlemanly diversion for the idle months,
but with the first yellow leaf he grows restless and hints indirectly
that both ourselves and the horses would be much better employed in
the really serious business of showing the little foxes some sport
back in our own green isle. "That Paddy," says he, slapping the bay
with a