as though he were
presenting arms. Also his face, which was usually expressionless as
though his mind were "at ease," had a way of suddenly coming to
"attention" when you spoke to him. He had a curious and recondite
knowledge of the folk-lore of the British Army, and entertained me at
times with stories of "Kruger's Own," "The White Shirts," "The Dirty
Twelfth," "The Holy Boys," "The Saucy Seventh," having names for the
regiments which you will never find in the _Army List_. In short, he was
a survival and in a way a tragic survival. For how many of the old Army
are left? I fear very few, and many traditions may have perished with
them.

In his solicitude for me Sykes had jealous rivals in Madame and Jeanne.
Madame reserved to herself as her peculiar prerogative the deposit of a
hot-water "bottle" in my bed every night, such a hot-water bottle as I
have never seen elsewhere. It reminded me of nothing so much as the
barrel of one of the newer machine-guns, being a long fluted cylinder of
black steel. This was always borne by Madame every night in ritualistic
procession, Jeanne following with a silver candlestick and a
night-light. The ceremony concluded with a bow and "good-night," two
words of which Madame was inordinately proud. She never attained
"good-morning," but she more than supplied the deficiency of English
speech by the grace of her French manners, always entering my room at 8
A.M. as I lay in bed, with the greeting, "Bon matin, M'sieu',
avez-vous bien dormi?" Perhaps I looked, as I felt, embarrassed on the
first occasion, for she quickly added in French, "I am old enough to be
your mother"--as indeed she was. She had at once the resignation in
repose and the agitation in action of extreme old age. I have seen her
dozing in her chair in the salon, as I passed through the hall, with her
gnarled hands extended on her knees in just that attitude of quiet
waiting which one associates with the well-known engraving in which
Death is figured as the coming of a friend. But when she was on her feet
she moved about with a kind of aimless activity, opening drawers and
shutting them and reopening them and speaking to herself the while,
until Jeanne, catching my puzzled expression, would whisper loudly in
my ear with a tolerant smile, "Elle est tres VIEILLE." Jeanne had
acquired a habit of raising her voice, owing to Madame's deafness, which
resulted in her whispers partaking of the phonetic quality of those
stage asides