e-de-menthe_. The hosts were invited to drink from
the brandy-bottle, which they did with the relish of experts in the
art of neat spirit drinking. To the hostesses was shown the
consideration due to their sex, and they were offered the green
concoction of peppermint. There is little of that coyness in the Dutch
composition which is met with in the civilisation of the West: each
lady of the household received her glass demurely and tossed off the
contents, pouring it, after the manner of Dutch spirit-drinkers,
ungracefully far into the mouth. The old Frau smacked her lips. "But
it is good," she said naively, and then taking the bottle from the
table she poured out the whole contents into a tumbler and emptied it
with one gulp down her capacious throat.

The brigadier was equal to the occasion. Raising his glass, he said,
"Madam, may I be permitted to drink your health and to thank you for
your hospitality." Madam smiled blandly, in no wise inconvenienced by
the severity of the potion which she had absorbed!...

But the good-humoured revelling of the dinner-table was shortly to be
changed for the stern reality of war. The brigadier and his staff had
barely bid farewell to their happy hostess and returned to their
bivouac when the voice of a tired and excited man was heard calling to
be directed to headquarters. It was the captain of cyclists who had
started that morning before daybreak for Strydenburg. The man's face
was a study when, having flung himself clear of his machine, which was
clanging like a _teuf-teuf_, he presented himself in the solitary tent
which during halts served the headquarters of the little column as a
living and sleeping apartment. In the dim light of a flickering
candle, it seemed that he was swathed in a sheet, so thick and white
was the crust of dust which covered him from head to foot. He
staggered into the mess-tent, swayed a moment, tried to salute, and
then dropped in a heap on to the camp chair offered to him.

_Brigadier._ "Give him some brandy."

After a long drink from the brandy-bottle the little captain of
cyclists recovered sufficiently to smile at his own weakness.

_Brigadier._ "Well, have you been fighting--where's your crush?"

_Cyclist Captain._ "Fighting--there never has been such fighting in
this war, it has been simply bloody!"

_B._ "Sanguinary, my boy; well, are you the last survivor? You rather
remind me of the last man of the poet's imagination."

_C. C._ (_deject