d the papers, and write your
letters or play games; then they have all sorts of good books for us to
read."

"And how are you getting on with your French?" I asked.

Tom blushed as he replied, "Would you like to see my report, sir?" and
he took it from his tunic proudly.

"Why, Tom, this is splendid!" I said, after reading it.

"Ay, I have worked fair hard at it," said Tom; "but my difficulty is
getting my tongue round the words. You see, they don't know how to
pronounce, these French people, and you have to pronounce their way
else they wouldn't understand what you wur saying, and you have to get
a grip on it or you can't understand what they are saying. I can
conjugate the verbs," added Tom proudly, "but when they speak to me in
French, that's anything like a long sentence, I get mixed up. While
I'm getting hold of the first part of what they're saying, I forget the
rest; but I will master it. What a French chap can learn a Lancashire
chap can.

"Do you know, sir," went on Tom, "that the Y.M.C.A. has got no less
than six huts here; each of them will hold a thousand men, and they are
jam-full every night. And all the workers are so friendly too."

"And do you go to any religious services, Tom?" I asked.

"I been to two or three," replied Tom, "but I don't hold much wi'
religion. Still they're grand people, and you may ask any man in the
camp, from the sergeant-major down to the newest recruit, and they will
all tell you the same thing, The Y.M.C.A. is a fair God-send to us."

I found out afterwards that Alec McPhail had not followed Tom's
example. Alec had discovered a wayside public-house about a mile from
the camp, where he and several others of his companions spent most of
their spare time.

"I'm noan religious," said Tom rather boastfully; "but the Y.M.C.A.
showed me that I was making a fool of myself, and they have made me see
that a soldier ought to be a gentleman. We're not a lot of riff-raff
in the Army; we have come at the call of our King and Country to do our
bit. And what I say is that a chap ought to live up to his job; we
have got a big, grand job, and we chaps as is to do it ought to be
worthy of our job."

Tom wrote regularly to Polly Powell during the time he was in the
Surrey camp, although he could not help noticing that Polly's replies
grew less and less frequent and less and less affectionate. When he
had been there a little more than two months he received a letter from
his