whether kicking furniture or blowing up hospitals.

Amid the ruins of her tidy little home, Madame Blondel lingered in
undaunted proprietorship--the very spirit of gallant, indomitable
France!

Perhaps, too, the bold entrance into these tyrant-ridden premises of the
two American boys under the forbidding flag of Teuton authority, had
something in it of the spirit of America. At least so Madame Blondel
seemed to regard it; and when Tom showed her his little button she threw
her arms around him, extending the area of her assault to Archer as
well.

"_Vive l'Amerique!_" she cried, with a fine look of defiance in her
snapping eyes.

She took the boys upstairs to a room--the only one, apparently, which
she could call her own--and here they told her their story.

It appeared that for many years she had lived in America, where her
husband had worked in a silk mill and she had kept a little road-house,
tempting American autoists with French cooking and wine of Burgundy.
She spoke English very well, save for a few charming little slips and
notwithstanding that she was short and stout and wore spectacles, she
was overflowing with the spirit of her beloved country, and with a
weakness for adventure and romance which took Tom and Archer by storm. A
true Frenchwoman indeed, defying with a noble heroism Time and
Circumstance and vulgar trespasses under her very roof.

"So you will rescue Mam'selle," she said clasping her hands and pressing
them to her breast with an inspiring look in her eyes. "So! This is
America--how you say--in a nutshell. Yess?"

"It seems to me you're France in a nutshell," said Tom awkwardly, "and
downstairs it's Germany in a nutshell."

"Ah-h-h!" She gave a fine shrug of disgust; "_he_ have gone to Berlin.
Tomorrow night late, his comrade will come--tomorrow night. So you are
safe. And you are ze true knight--so! You will r-rescue Mam'selle," and
she placed her two hands on Tom's shoulders, looking at him with
delight, and ended by embracing him.

She seemed more interested in his rescuing "Mam'selle" than in anything
else and that apparently because it was a bold adventure in gallantry.
A true Frenchwoman indeed.

"She'd make a bully scoutmaster," Tom whispered to Archer.

"They might as well try to capturre the moon as put France out of
business," said Archer.

Yes, big or little, man or woman, one or a million, in devastated home
or devastated country, she is always the same, gallant, spirite