you may be sure that be received every attention. Some ammonia
was held under his nose. This soon brought him around and after
carefully sounding all his bones, Madame Guix decided that there were no
fractures. And the bandaging began!

It makes me smile when I think of it all now--for the only wounds Johnny
possessed were a few scratches on his bands, knees and head, caused by
his sudden contact with a patch of stinging nettles which had sprung up
on the river banks.

Under ordinary circumstances, the child would probably have picked
himself up and walked home, forgetting his woes an hour later. But real
live models who are actually in pain, are few and far between,
especially at "courses" such as ours, and the amount of professional
skill that was expended on that little urchin ought to have cured six of
his kind. But it all made the women so happy!

At the end of half an hour, Johnny Poupard looked more like an Egyptian
mummy than a human being, so much so that when his grandmother arrived
upon the scene of action, she very nearly fainted and all but became
patient number two at Auxiliary Hospital No. 7!

We had some little difficulty reassuring her, but when her prodigal
grandson sat up and asked for bread and jam, she forgot her anxiety and
began scolding him for daring to give her such a fright, and us so much
trouble.

* * * *

Towards the end of the third week in August the mobilization was
considered finished and the Eastern Railroad opened again to the public;
its time tables of course being limited and subject to instant change,
the company refusing to be responsible for delays. To us at the chateau
this meant very little, save that we would receive our mail and the
daily papers more frequently. However, several friends who fancied I
was unsafe alone and so far from the capital, kindly ventured to start
to Villiers to try to persuade me to come up to town. It took them seven
hours to reach Meaux (thirty miles from Paris); they were obliged to
sleep there because it was because it was announced that their train
went no further--and worse than all, they were eighteen hours getting
home.

"Wheren't people furious?" I questioned, when afterwards they told me of
their adventure.

"Not in the slightest. Everyone bore it patiently as part of his
tribute to his country. 'The army first' was their motto."

The first batch of mail brought me any number of stale letters, which
had arrived and been h