what's yours?"

"I'll leave it to you," said Peter.

He sat down at a little table rather in the corner and lit a cigarette.
The place was well lighted, and by means of mirrors, coloured-glass
ornaments, paper decorations, and a few palms, it looked in its own way
smart. Two or three officers were drinking at the bar, sitting on high
stools, and Pennell went up to give his order. He brought two glasses
to Peter's table and sat down. "What fools we are, padre!" he said. "I
sometimes think that the man who gets simply and definitely tight when he
feels he wants a breather is wiser than most of us. We drink till we're
excited, and then we drink to get over it. And I suppose the devil sits
and grins. Well, it's a weary world, and there isn't any good road out of
it. I sometimes wish I'd stopped a bullet earlier on in the day. And yet
I don't know. We do get some excitement. Let's go to a music-hall
to-night."

"What about dinner?"

"Oh, get a quiet one in a decent hotel. I'll have to clear out at
half-time if you don't mind."

"Not a bit," said Peter. "Half will be enough for me, I think. But let's
have dinner before we've had more of these things."

The bar was filling up. A few girls came and went. Pennell nodded to a
man or two, and finished his glass. And they went off to dinner.

The music-hall was not much of a show, but it glittered, and people
obviously enjoyed it. Peter watched the audience as much as the stage.
Quite respectable French families were there, and there was nothing done
that might not have been done on an English stage--perhaps less, but the
words were different. The women as well as the men screamed with
laughter, flushed of face, but an old fellow, with his wife and daughter,
obviously from the country, sat as stiffly as an English farmer through
it all. The daughter glanced once at the two officers, but then looked
away; she was well brought up. A half-caste Algerian, probably, came
on and danced really extraordinarily well, and a negro from the States,
equally ready in French and English, sang songs which the audience
demanded. He was entirely master, however, and, conscious of his power,
used it. No one in the place seemed to have heard of the colour-bar,
except a couple of Americans, who got up and walked out when the comedian
clasped a white girl round the waist in one of his songs. The negro made
some remark that Peter couldn't catch, and the place shook with laughter.

At half-time e