ccordingly some
competition, especially on the part of the military element, of which
the majority is proceeding to Paris on leave and doesn't propose to
start its outing by going without its dinner. Only the very fit or the
very cunning survive. Having got in myself among the latter category
I was not surprised to see, among the former category, a large and
powerful Canadian Corporal.

If he can afford to pay for his dinner there is no reason, I suppose,
why even a corporal should not dine. If he can manage to snaffle a
seat in the car there is certainly no reason why a French Commandant
should not dine. There is every reason, I imagine, for railway
companies to furnish their dining-cars with those little tables for
two which bring it about that a pair of passengers, who have never
seen each other before and have not elected to meet on this occasion,
find themselves together, for a period, on the terms of the most
complete and homely intimacy. Lastly, the attendant had every reason
to put the Corporal and the Commandant to dine together, for there was
nowhere else to put either of them.

What would have happened if this had taken place ten years ago, and
the French Commandant had been an English Major? The situation, of
course, simply could not have arisen; it would have been unthinkable.
But if it had arisen the train would certainly have stopped for good;
probably the world would have come to an end. As it was, what did
happen? Let me say at once that both the Corporal and the Commandant
behaved with a generosity which was entirely delightful; the
Corporal's was pecuniary generosity, the Commandant's generosity of
spirit. This was as it should be, and both were true to type.

Quick though the French are at the uptake, it took the good Commandant
just a little while to settle down to the odd position. This was not
the size and shape and manner of man with whom he was used to take
his meals. As an officer one feels one's responsibilities on these
public occasions, and I felt I ought to intervene and to do something
to rearrange the general position. But at the start I caught the
Corporal's eye, and there was in it such a convincing look of
"Whatever I may do I mean awfully well," that I just sat still and
did nothing.

The awkward pause was over before the soup was finished. Rough
good-nature and subtle good sense soon combined to eliminate arbitrary
distinctions. The Commandant won the first credit by starting a