. When my friend, the lieutenant, joined the regiment as
a private he was smooth-shaven and his colonel asked him whether he was
a priest or a bookmaker, or meant to be a soldier. Next morning he
allowed nature to have her way on his upper lip, the colonel's hint
being law in all things to those who served under him.

Every officer had his _croix de guerre_ in this colonial battalion with
its ranks open to all comers of all degrees and promotion for those who
could earn it in face of the machine guns where the New Army privates
were earning theirs. One officer with the chest of Hercules, who looked
equal to the fiercest Prussian or the tallest Pomeranian and at least
one additional small Teuton for good measure, mentioned that he had been
in Peking. I asked him if he knew some officer friends of mine who had
been there at the same time. He replied that he had been a private then,
and he liked the American Y.M.C.A.

His breast was a panoply of medals. Among them was the Legion of Honor,
while his _croix de guerre_ had all the stars, bronze, silver and gold,
and two palms, as I remember, which meant that twice some deed of his
out in the inferno had won official mention for him all the way up from
the battalion through brigade, division and corps to the supreme
command. The American Y.M.C.A. in Peking ought to be proud of his good
opinion.

The architect, tall, well built, smiling and fair-haired, with an
intellectual face, sat opposite the little dealer in precious stones who
had traveled the world around in his occupation. There was an artist,
too, who held an argument with the architect on art which _mon
capitaine_ considered meretricious and hair-splitting, his conviction
being that they were only airing a wordy pretentiousness and really knew
little more of what they were talking about than he. In politics we had
a Republican, a Socialist and a Royalist, who also were babbling without
capturing any dugouts, according to _mon capitaine_ who was simply a
soldier. It was clear that the Socialist and the Royalist were both
popular, as well as my friend, though he had been promoted to the staff.

Another present was the "Admiral," a naval officer, commanding the
monstrous guns of twelve to seventeen inches mounted on railway trucks,
who wrote sonnets between directing two-thousand-pound projectiles on
their errands of mashing German dugouts. He did not like gunnery where
he did not see his target naval fashion, but he