platoon boys
admired more, even than himself, it was the music of his ever generous,
ever delighting violin. Deep in some dugout we would gather around him.
Tenderly and fondly he would take the instrument from the battered box,
patting it like a young mother her baby's cheek.

Beginning with some light popular air in which all would vocally join,
he would soon glide like a spirit of melody to the unprofaned height of
the music masters. Bach was his favorite. And when, with the mute, to
soften the waves from unfriendly ears, he would interpret some symphony
of the soul, we would forget our grim surroundings and dream we "dwelt
in marble halls."

He knew my passionate fondness for music and took delight in pleasing
me. What pictures he could paint on the canvas of my fancy! Under the
spell of his music I would drop anchor in the harbor of the fairest
dream. Now, it would be a landscape the brush of his bow would paint--a
midsummer day with sheep gently grazing on some hillside: again, it
would be a forest, with treetops cowering before an on-rushing storm.

One evening he was playing with the mute on "Humoresque." His big brown
eyes, that were not the least attractive feature of his handsome face,
looked steadily into mine across the bridge of his violin.

"What is the picture tonight, Chaplain?"

[Illustration: DOCTOR LUGAR AND AIDS WORKING IN A GAS ATTACK NEAR JOLNEY.]

"I see a coast," I replied; "it is a fair summer day, with waves of all
blue and silver, dancing in the breeze. A yacht is just off shore; the
sail, a creamy bit of color; at the tiller a chap, handsome as
yourself, and at his side a girl"--here he stopped playing and looking
intently at me exclaimed:

"Why, that's the very thing I was thinking of myself!"

Laying aside the violin he drew from his kit a bundle of letters tied
with ribbon. Delightedly, radiantly, he showed me _her_ picture--yes,
her pictures, for surely he had twenty of them. Then he narrated "the
sweetest story ever told"; how wonderful she was, how tenderly he loved
her, how they had sacredly promised to marry on his return, and planned
to seek their young fortunes in South America.

The days following were filled with big thrilling events. The ebb and
flow of battle called into action all that was best and noblest in the
boys, and my Lieutenant served his Battery and wrought deeds of valor to
a degree all excelling and inspiring. I knew the secret of it all, it
was the thoug