across a bit of grass the public weren't
supposed to cross. An old gentleman fairly roared the instant he saw
me. He was ready to explode at the mere suggestion that any one could
think of disobeying a rule made for all of them.

"'Das kann man nicht thun! Es ist verboten!'"

The other quoted the answer of an English factory-owner to some of his
employees who did not want to enlist. "They've done a lot for working
men over there," the man said. "Accident-insurance, old-age pensions,
and all that--what do we want to fight the Kaiser for? We'd just about
as soon be under Billy as George." And X------said to them: "If you were
under Kaiser Billy, you'd enlist right enough, there's no doubt of
that!"

Boulogne, Saturday.

He sat in the corner of our compartment coming down from Calais this
afternoon, an old Algerian soldier, homeward bound, with a big, round
loaf of bread and a military pass. He had a blue robe, bright-red, soft
boots, a white turban wound with a sort of scarf of brown cord and baggy
corduroy underneath, concealing various mysterious pockets.

"Paris? To-night?" he grunted in his queer French. The big Frenchman
next him, who had served in Africa in his youth and understood the
dialect, shook his head. "To-morrow morning!" he said. He laid his
head on his hand to suggest a man sleeping, and held up three fingers.
"Three days--Marseilles!" The old goumier's dark eyes blazed curiously,
and he opened and shut his mouth in a dry yawn--like a tiger yawning.

Wounded? No--he pointed to his eyes, which were bloodshot, patted his
forehead to suggest that it was throbbing, rubbed his legs, and scowled.
"Rheumatism!" said the Frenchman. The Algerian pressed his palms
together six times, then held up two fingers. "He's sixty-two years
old!" said the Frenchman, and the old warrior obligingly opened his jaws
and pointed to two or three lone brown fangs to prove it. They talked
for a moment in the vernacular, and the Frenchman explained again,
"Volunteer!" and then, "Scout!"

The old Arab made the motion of sighting along a rifle, then of brushing
something over, and tapped himself on the chest.

"Deux!" he said. "Two Germans--me!" Evidently he was going back to the
desert satisfied.

Train after train passed us, northward bound, some from Boulogne, some
from the trenches north of Paris evidently, bringing artillery caked
with mud--all packed with British soldiers leaning from doors of their
cattle