their
original price. It was only by the payment of such prices that the
officer was able to get anything that could possibly leave a trace of
yellow on his chin. If there was a surplus, the soldiers themselves had
ample belt room to accommodate it.

In one village tavern, I saw one soldier eat fourteen eggs which he
ordered Madame to fry in succession. I can believe it because I saw it.
Madame saw it also, but I feel that she did not believe her eyes. A
captain of the Judge Advocate's office also witnessed the gastronomic
feat.

"Every one of those eggs was bought and paid for," he said. "Our
department handles claims for all stolen or destroyed property and we
have yet to receive the first claim from this town. Of course every one
knows that a hungry man will steal to eat and there are those who hold
that theft for the purpose of satisfying demands of the stomach is not
theft. But our records show that the American soldier in France is ready
to, willing to, and capable of buying what he needs outside of his
ration allowance.

"We have some instances of stealing, but most of them are trivial.
Recently, we took from the pay of one whole battalion the cost of
thirty-one cheeses which were taken from a railroad restaurant counter.
The facts were that some of our troops en route were hungry and the
train was stopping only for five minutes and the woman behind the
counter didn't have time to even take, much less change, the money
offered, so the men grabbed the cheeses and ran out just in time to
board the train as it was moving off.

"There was one case, though, in which Uncle Sam didn't have the heart to
charge any one. He paid the bill himself and maybe if you could send the
story back home, the citizens who paid it would get a laugh worth the
money. It happened during a recent cold spell when some of our troops
were coming from seaboard to the interior. They travelled in semi-opened
horse cars and it was cold, damn cold.

"One of the trains stopped in front of a small railroad station and six
soldiers with cold hands and feet jumped from the car and entered the
waiting room, in the centre of which was a large square coal stove with
red hot sides. One man stood on another one's shoulders and disjointed
the stove pipe. At the same time, two others placed poles under the
bottom of the stove, lifted it off the floor and walked out of the room
with it.

"They placed it in the horse car, stuck the pipe out of one doo