led concerts were practically all at the various rest
billets we visited. These were, in the main, at chateaux. Always, at
such a place, I had a double audience. The soldiers would make a
great ring, as close to me as they could get, and around them, again,
in a sort of outer circle, were French villagers and peasants, vastly
puzzled and mystified, but eager to be pleased, and very ready with
their applause.

It must have been hard for them to make up their minds about me, if
they gave me much thought. My kilt confused them; most of them
thought I was a soldier from some regiment they had not yet seen,
wearing a new and strange uniform. For my kilt, I need not say, was
not military, nor was the rest of my garb warlike!

I gave, during that time, as many as seven concerts in a day. I have
sung as often as thirty-five times in one day, and on such occasions
I was thankful that I had a strong and durable voice, not easily worn
out, as well as a stout physique. Hogge and Dr. Adam appeared as
often as I did, but they didn't have to sing!

Nearly all the songs I gave them were ditties they had known for a
long time. The one exception was the tune that had been so popular in
"Three Cheers"--the one called "The Laddies Who Fought and Won." Few
of the boys had been home since I had been singing that song, but it
has a catching lilt, and they were soon able to join in the chorus
and send it thundering along. They took to it, too--and well they
might! It was of such as they that it was written.

We covered perhaps a hundred miles a day during this period. That
does not sound like a great distance for high-powered motor cars, but
we did a good deal of stopping, you see, here and there and
everywhere. We were roaming around in the backwater of war, you might
say. We were out of the main stream of carnage, but it was not out of
our minds and our hearts. Evidences of it in plenty came to us each
day. And each day we were a little nearer to the front line trenches
than we had come the day before. We were working gradually toward
that climax that I had been promised.

I was always eager to talk to officers and men, and I found many
chances to do so. It seemed to me that I could never learn enough
about the soldiers. I listened avidly to every story that was told
to me, and was always asking for more. The younger officers,
especially, it interested me to talk with. One day I was talking
to such a lieutenant.

"How is the spirit o