, Swiss-movement pocket-watch. The
American knew its value and wanted it.

They stood and argued. Several times during the interesting
transaction the American shrugged his shoulders and walked away as if
to say: "Oh, I don't want your old watch. It isn't worth anything."

Then they would get together again, and the gesticulating would begin
all over; the machine-gun staccato of "Oui Oui's" would rattle again,
and the argument would continue, without either one of the contracting
parties knowing a word of the other's language.

At last I saw the American soldier unstrap his Ingersoll and hand it
over to the Frenchman, who, in turn, pulled out the good Swiss-movement
watch, and both parties to the transaction went off happy, for each had
gotten what he wanted.

One of the funniest things that happened in France while I was there
was told me by a wounded boy one Sunday afternoon back of the Notre
Dame cathedral. He was invalided from the Chateau-Thierry scrap in
which the American marines had played such a heroic part. He was a
member of the marines, and was slightly wounded. He saw that I was a
secretary, and thought to play a good joke on me. He pulled out of his
breast-pocket a small black thing that looked and was bound just like a
Bible. Its corner was dented, and it was plain to be seen that a
bullet had hit it, and that that book had stopped its death-dealing
course.

I should have been warned by a gleam that I saw in his eyes, but was
not. I said: "So you see that it's a good thing to be carrying a Bible
around in your pocket?"

"Yes, that saved my life last week," he said impressively. Then he
showed me the hole in his blouse where it had hit. The hole was still
torn and ragged. In the meantime I was opening what I thought was his
Bible.

It was a deck of cards.

I can hear that fine American lad's laughter yet. It rang like the
bells of the old cathedral itself, in the shadow of which we stood.
His laughter startled the group of old men playing checkers on a park
bench into forgetting their game and joining in the fun. Everybody
stopped to see what the fun was about. That lad had a good one on the
secretary, and he was enjoying it as much as the secretary himself.

Then he said: "Now I'll tell you a good story to make up for fooling
you."

"You had better," I said with a sheepish grin.

Then he began:

"There was a fellow named Rosenbaum brought in with me last week to the
Paris h