hotels and their guests to welcome the soldiers who
have permission to visit Paris, especially those
who come from the districts invaded by the Germans 228

All over France, on Christmas Day and the day after,
money was collected to send comforts and things
good to eat to the men at the front 232

A poster advertising the fund to bring from the trenches
"permissionaires," those soldiers who obtain permission
to return home for six days 236

"Very interestin'. You ought to frame it" 252

"They have women policemen now" 262

WITH THE FRENCH
IN FRANCE AND SALONIKA

CHAPTER I

PRESIDENT POINCARE THANKS AMERICA

PARIS, October, 1915.

While still six hundred miles from the French coast the passengers on
the _Chicago_ of the French line entered what was supposed to be the war
zone.

In those same waters, just as though the reputation of the Bay of Biscay
was not sufficiently scandalous, two ships of the line had been
torpedoed.

So, in preparation for what the captain tactfully called an "accident,"
we rehearsed abandoning ship.

It was like the fire-drills in our public schools. It seemed a most
sensible precaution, and one that in times of peace, as well as of war,
might with advantage be enforced on all passenger-ships.

In his proclamation Commandant Mace of the _Chicago_ borrowed an idea
from the New York Fire Department. It was the warning Commissioner
Adamson prints on theatre programmes, and which casts a gloom over
patrons of the drama by instructing them to look for the nearest
fire-escape.

Each passenger on the _Chicago_ was assigned to a life-boat. He was
advised to find out how from any part of the ship at which he might be
caught he could soonest reach it.

Women and children were to assemble on the boat deck by the boat to
which they were assigned. After they had been lowered to the water, the
men--who, meanwhile, were to be segregated on the deck below them--would
descend by rope ladders.

Entrance to a boat was by ticket only. The tickets were six inches
square and bore a number. If you lost your ticket you lost your life.
Each of the more imaginative passengers insured his life by fastening
the ticket to his clothes with a safety-pin.

Two days from land there was a full-dress rehearsal, and for the first
t