ieur, I meet this man at the hotel. She was right. His name
was Helois. Here is his card. The Lieutenant Louis F. Helois, and he is
a lieutenant in the United States Army."

"So it was a mistake," replied the Captain, handing the card back to the
wood merchant, whose lobster red features bore an enigmatical smile.

"No,--not the mistake, the truth," replied the wood merchant. "Not my
son--but my grandson--the son of my son--the son of my third son who
went to America years ago. And now he comes back in the uniform of
liberty to fight again for France. Ah, _Messieurs les Officiers_--the
sons of France return from the ends of the world to fight her cause."

While the wood merchant was telling us that the American grandson had
only stopped three days in the town and then had moved up to service at
the front, the air was shattered by a loud report. It was the snap of
the whip in the hands of the young French amazon, standing high on the
load of wood. We escorted the fuel proudly to the Place de la
Republique. Soon the fires were burning briskly and the smell of onions
and coffee and hot chow was on the air.

The stoves were pitched at the bottom of a stone monument in the centre
of the square. Bags of potatoes and onions and burlap covered quarters
of beef and other pieces of mess sergeants paraphernalia were piled on
the steps of the monument, which was covered with the green and black
scars from dampness and age.

The plinth supported a stone shaft fifteen feet in height, which touched
the lower branches of the trees. The monument was topped with a huge
cross of stone on which was the sculptured figure of the Christ.

Little Sykoff, the battery mess sergeant, stood over the stove at the
bottom of the monument. He held in his hand a frying pan, which he shook
back and forth over the fire to prevent the sizzling chips in the pan
from burning. His eyes lowered from an inspection of the monument and
met mine. He smiled.

"Mr. Gibbons," he said, "if that brother of mine, who runs the
photograph gallery out on Paulina and Madison Streets in Chicago, could
only see me now, he sure would tell the Rabbi. Can you beat it--a Jew
here frying ham in the shadow of the Cross."

It was rather hard to beat--and so was the ham. We made this concession
as we sat on the plinth of the monument and polished our mess kits with
bread. And such bread--it was the regulation United States army issue
bread--white, firm and chuck full of nour