ces, and grand acquaintances throughout the world)--when, I
say, I had lunched in a workman's cafe at Belfort, I set out again on
my road, and was very much put out to find that showers still kept on
falling.

In the early morning, under such delightful trees, up in the
mountains, the branches had given me a roof, the wild surroundings
made me part of the out-of-doors, and the rain had seemed to marry
itself to the pastures and the foaming beck. But here, on a road and
in a town, all its tradition of discomfort came upon me. I was angry,
therefore, with the weather and the road for some miles, till two
things came to comfort me. First it cleared, and a glorious sun showed
me from a little eminence the plain of Alsace and the mountains of the
Vosges all in line; secondly, I came to a vast powder-magazine.

To most people there is nothing more subtle or pleasing in a
powder-magazine than in a reservoir. They are both much the same in
the mere exterior, for each is a flat platform, sloping at the sides
and covered with grass, and each has mysterious doors. But, for my
part, I never see a powder-magazine without being filled at once with
two very good feelings--- laughter and companionship. For it was my
good fortune, years and years ago, to be companion and friend to two
men who were on sentry at a powder-magazine just after there had been
some anarchist attempts (as they call them) upon such depots--and for
the matter of that I can imagine nothing more luscious to the
anarchist than seven hundred and forty-two cases of powder and fifty
cases of melinite all stored in one place. And to prevent the enormous
noise, confusion, and waste that would have resulted from the
over-attraction of this base of operations to the anarchists, my two
friends, one of whom was a duty-doing Burgundian, but the other a
loose Parisian man, were on sentry that night. They had strict orders
to challenge once and then to fire.

Now, can you imagine anything more exquisite to a poor devil of a
conscript, fagged out with garrison duty and stale sham-fighting, than
an order of that kind? So my friends took it, and in one summer night
they killed a donkey and wounded two mares, and broke the thin stem of
a growing tree.

This powder-magazine was no exception to my rule, for as I approached
it I saw a round-faced corporal and two round-faced men looking
eagerly to see who might be attacking their treasure, and I became
quite genial in my mind whe