of the road and shook with laughter--not unkindly, but
in the utmost friendliness and good humor--waiting till I rejoined him
and we resumed our walk.

A little man, shockingly bedraggled, worn out almost to the point of
collapse, utterly indifferent to his own danger, and taking a huge,
childlike delight in my care for my personal safety, the picture of
him as he stood and laughed all alone in the bare road amid the
bursting shells seems to me curiously typical of the whole Belgian
Army.

Another picture also--a composite photograph--I shall never forget. It
is the same man--sometimes blonde, sometimes dark, but always the same
smallish man--as, on picket duty, he stops you to examine your papers.
He does not understand the papers in the least. The British passport
begins with the words, "We, Sir Edward Grey, a Baronet of the United
Kingdom...." Sternly he wrinkles his brow over the formidable
document, earnestly trying to do his duty. At last, "Votre nom,
Edouard Gra-ee?" he asks. You explain that you wish that it was and
call attention to the place where your own insignificant name is
mentioned lower down. To his immense relief he has mastered the
central fact, namely, that you are English. And his face lights up
with the smile which one has come to know so well; a smile of real
pleasure and good-will.

Sometimes he speaks a word of English, and with what pride he uses it!
"All ri'!" "Good night!" "How do?" And you go on into the night
feeling that you are leaving a friend behind whom you would like to
stop and talk to. And he, you know, has been cheered in his lonely
duty by the mere contact with an ally.

THE HEROIC LANGUAGE

By ALICE MEYNELL.

[From King Albert's Book.]

When our now living languages are "dead,"
Which in the classes shall be treasured?
Which will the masters teach?
Kepler's, and Shakespeare's, and thy word, thy phrase,
Thy grammar, thou heroic, for all days,
O little Flemish speech!

Cheerful Spirits in Trench Inferno

[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

Northern France, Dec. 20, (Dispatch to The London Daily News.)--This
week--a week of many significant things--has ended in the wildest
whirl of weather imaginable. The rains have been terrific, blinding,
tropical in their almost ceaseless roar and fury. Surely only madmen
or fiends would fight in such an elemental maelstrom. We may be both,
and perhaps we are, now that the whol