more fullness of perfection.
The avenger stood just inside an alley leading to the dressing room,
with a pail of water in hand for his intended victim; the water had been
scooped out of a tub that had just been used, and it was as dirty as
water could be.

As I came even with the alley opening, thinking I was the victim, he let
me have it full in the face. I was blinded for a moment with the greasy,
soapy, dirty water, and, when my eyes were sufficiently open, it was
impossible for me to learn who it was. However, like all things of that
kind, I took it in good part and hastened to undress. I filled my tub
with pails of water from the tap and started my bath. Oh, how refreshing
it was! I don't think I ever appreciated the luxury of a bath until that
moment. When through with my ablution it was necessary, before I could
dress, to grease my body with a vermin-killer that is supplied the men.
This done, I commenced dressing, and had donned my underwear and pants
when,--Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p!--and a shell landed right in the middle
of the bathroom, and the bunch of merry-hearted fellows was transformed
into a panic-stricken crowd, leaping and jumping out of the tubs in
every direction in a pell-mell rush, helter-skelter, of men, some half
dressed, others absolutely naked, intermingled with the women
attendants, in the scramble for safety. Civilians, coming from their
houses in a mad rush, added to the confusion.

When the smoke of the explosion cleared, thirty of the bathers lay dead
in, on and around the tubs, and forty were wounded, all more or less
badly. Inside of three minutes, more shells were planted, some of them
landing plumb in the square, and, to my intense sorrow, I learned later
that Fox, my little chum, there had paid the supreme price. These shells
were totally unexpected, coming from the Hooge district, 11 miles
distant.

Everybody sought shelter in the cellars, or any other hole they could
crawl into, until night. I searched out my mule, and was thankful to
find it where I had left it, tied to a tree, gave it a feed of oats,
waited until it munched, unperturbed by the crashing explosions breaking
in the immediate neighborhood, and utterly oblivious of the fact that I
was counting the seconds until it had finished.

Under cover of the night, I returned to the wagon lines, and in much
better time than coming down, for which I had to thank the feed of oats.
The bath gave me a new hold on life; I felt ten