re stoves, thawing out our
cramped joints.

With the exception of Lieutenant Furness my officers belonged to the
Reserve Corps, and we none of us looked forward to a long tour of garrison
duty on the Rhine or anywhere else. Furness, who had particularly
distinguished himself in liaison work with the infantry, held a temporary
commission in the regular army, but he was eager to go back to civil life
at the earliest opportunity. In Germany the prospect was doubly gloomy,
for there would be no intercourse with the natives such as in France had
lightened many a weary moment. Several days later regimental headquarters
coveted our village and we were moved a few miles off across the hills to
Holler. We set to work to make ourselves as snug and comfortable as
possible. I had as striker a little fellow of Finnish extraction name
Jahoola, an excellent man in every way, who took the best of care of my
horse and always managed to fix up my billet far better than the
circumstances would seem to permit.

The days that followed presented little variety once the novelty of the
occupation had worn off. The men continued to behave in exemplary fashion,
and the Boche gave little trouble. As soon as we took up our quarters we
made the villagers clean up the streets and yards until they possessed a
model town, and thereafter we "policed up" every untidiness of which we
might be the cause, and kept the inhabitants up to the mark in what
concerned them. The head of the house in which I was lodged in
Niederelbert told me that his son had been a captain in the army but had
deserted a fortnight before the armistice and reached home in civilian
clothes three weeks in advance of the retreating army. Of course he was
not an officer before the war--not of the old military school, but the
fact that he and his family were proud of it spoke of a weakening
discipline and morale.

Now that we had settled down to a routine existence I was doubly glad of
such books as I had been able to bring along. Of these, O. Henry was the
most popular. The little shilling editions were read until they fell to
pieces, and in this he held the same position as in the British army. I
had been puzzled at this popularity among the English, for much of his
slang must have been worse than Greek to them. I also had _Charles
O'Malley_ and _Harry Lorrequer_, Dumas' _Dame de Monsereau_ and _Monte
Cristo_, Flaubert's _Education Sentimentale_, Gibbon's _Rise and Fall_,
and Borro