guns against the
German waves has been the pride of both the navy and the army.

Over there is a young captain who this time last year was a "shavetail"
second in command at a small post along the line of communications in
Chihuahua. Next to him sits a tall dark youngster wearing with pride his
first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar. He carted human
wreckage to the hospitals on the French front for two years before Uncle
Sam decided to end the war. There's another one not long from the
"Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his uniform. He speaks with a
twang of old Virginia on every syllable and they say his family--but
that has nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major general
and is in these parts on a mission.

There are three American women in the room. One who is interested in Y.
M. C. A. work and a number of newspapers, wears a feminine adaptation of
the uniform and holds court at the head of a table of five officers.
Another, Mrs. Robert R. McCormick, who is engaged in the extension of
the canteen work of a Paris organisation, is sitting at our table and
she is willing to wager her husband anything from half a dozen gloves to
a big donation check that Germany will be ready for any kind of peace
before an American offensive in the spring.

The interests of the other American woman are negative. She professes no
concern in the fact that war correspondents' life insurances are
cancelled, but she repeats to me that a dead correspondent is of no use
to his paper, and I reply that if madame puts yet another one of her
courses on the board, one correspondent will die with a fork in his hand
instead of a pencil.

The diners are leaving. Each opening of the salon door brings in a gust
of dampness that makes the tablecloths flap. Rain coats swish and rustle
in the entry. Rain is falling in sheets in the black courtyard. The moon
is gone.

A merry party trails down the stone gallery skirting the quadrangle.
Their hobnailed soles and steel plated heels ring on the stone flags.
The arches echo back their song:

"In days of old
A warrior bold
Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc.
My love is young and fair.
My love has golden hair,
So what care I
Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc."

With frequent passages where a dearth of words reduce the selection to
musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas, the voices melt into the blackness
and the rain.

"Great times to b