e hat I must leave behind me as if it were his
bride.

But Jean--Jean does not understand at all. He thinks that I am not
satisfied with the service of our incomparable mess; that I prefer the
flesh-pots of the "Poste" and the manners of its waiters. He has no
other thought but this, and it is abominable; it is the worst of all.
The explanation thickens. I struggle gloriously with the French
language; one moment it has me by the throat and I am strangled; the
next I writhe forth triumphant. Strange gestures are given to me; I
plunge into the darkest pits of memory for the words that have escaped
me; I find them (or others just as good); it is really quite easy to say
that I am coming back again in a week.

Interview with Madame F. and M. G., the President.

Interview with the Commandant. Final assault on the defences of the New
Chivalry (the Commandant's mind is an impregnable fortress).

And, by way of afterthought, I inquire whether, in the event of a sudden
scoot before the Germans, a reporter quartered at the Hotel de la Poste
will be cut off from the base of communications and left to his or her
ingenuity in flight?

The Commandant, vague and imperturbable, replies that in all probability
it will be so.

And I (if possible more imperturbable than he) observe that the War
Correspondents will make quite a nice flying-party.

In a little open carriage--the taxis have long ago all gone to the
War--in an absurd little open carriage, exactly like a Cheltenham "rat,"
I depart like a lady of Cheltenham, for the Hotel de la Poste. The
appearance and the odour of this little carriage give you an odd sense
of security and peace. The Germans may be advancing on Ghent at this
moment, but for all the taste of war there is in it, you might be that
lady, going from one hotel to the other, down the Cheltenham Promenade.

The further you go from the Military Hospital and the Railway Station
the more it is so. The War does not seem yet to have shaken the
essential peace of the _bourgeois_ city. The Hotel de la Poste is in the
old quarter of the town, where the Cathedrals are. Instead of the long,
black railway lines and the red-brick facade of the Station and Post
Office; instead of the wooded fields beyond and the white street that
leads to the battle-places south and east; instead of the great Square
with its mustering troops and swarms of refugees, you have the quiet
Place d'Armes, shut in by trees, and all round it are t