't he told me so before? Oh! Did I not
wish to practise my French? So many did, and if they made him understand,
the tips were sometimes more inspiring.

The steamer for England had been scheduled to leave the night of the day
our train arrived, but she did not leave. We did not learn whether it
was the full moon or the U-boats shifting their hunting-grounds or the
late air-raids on the south coast of England. Whatever the cause, no one
growled much. The steamship people and the government were doing their
best with a difficult service. The delay gave us another day to look the
port over. I had been there years before. Then it was all French; now it
seemed to be mostly British. The streets, the shops, the cafes, were
crowded with English, Canadian, and Australian soldiers. British soldiers
were running the tram-cars. In the country outside was a large British
camp. The French owners of the ships and of the cafes in the narrow
streets near the jetties catered especially to the British soldier and
sailor. English tobacco, English rosbif--they advertised these in quaintly
worded signs.

Ships lay between the jetties and the breakwater, coasting and deep-water
steamers, and the little fishing-cutters with the tanned sails. There was
a fleet (or a flock) of seaplanes all ready to take to either the water or
the air. They took to both while we looked, hurdling the breakwater from
the basin to get more quickly to some smoke on the horizon. They were
brand-new planes all, with the most beautiful polished maple pontoons and
bright varnish over paint that still smelled fresh.

Soldiers not so worn and weary as those on the hospital veranda came
down to the jetty promenade. Priests, nursing sisters, other soldiers
and sailors came also. What interested them most was the sun shining on
the bright new wood of the planes flying out to see what the smoke
meant. It was a ship from across the ocean somewhere, and the planes
circled it into the basin--one more ship which had beat the U-boat game
and brought home something needed. There was some noise along the jetty
and yet more noise in the wide and narrow streets of the town--clanging
trams, whip-cracking fiacres, yelling newsboys, honking taxis, and
soldiers and sailors tramping the pavements. Noise enough, and of the
kind befitting a Channel port in war time; but for a time at least we
heard the noise let down, and the bustle softened.

In a wide street of shops appeared a white-h