at the
front--though called mad could be made the object of method if he had
not method in madness. When he seemed about to collapse with fatigue,
tell him that there had been a big haul of German prisoners on the Ridge
and the blaze of delight in his dark eyes would galvanize him. If he
should falter again, a shout of, "_Vive l'Entente cordiale! En avant!_"
would send him off with coat-tails at right angles to his body as he
sprang into the midst of the riot of waiters outside the kitchen door,
from which he would emerge triumphantly bearing the course that was
next in order. Nor would he allow you to skip one. You must take them
all or, as the penalty of breaking up the system, you went hungry.

Outside in the court where you went for coffee and might sometimes get
it if you gave the head waiter good news from the front, a stork and a
sea-gull with clipped wings posed at the fountain. What tales of battle
were told in sight of this incongruous pair whose antics relieved the
strain of war! When the stork took a step or two the gull plodded along
after him and when the gull moved the stork also moved, the two never
being more than three or four feet apart. Yet each maintained an
attitude of detachment as if loath to admit the slightest affection for
each other. Foolish birds, as many said and laughed at them; and again,
heroes out of the hell on the Ridge and wholly unconscious of their
heroism said that the two had the wisdom of the ages, particularly the
stork, though expert artillery opinion was that the practical gull
thought that only his own watchfulness kept the wisdom of the ages from
being drowned in the fountain in an absent-minded moment, though the
water was not up to a stork's ankle-joint. More nonsense, when the call
was for reaction from the mighty drama, was woven around these
entertainers by men who could not go to plays than would be credible to
people reading official bulletins; woven by dining parties of officers
who when dusk fell went indoors and gathered around the piano before
going into a charge on the morrow.

At intervals men in civilian clothes, soft hats, gaiters over everyday
trousers, golf suits, hunting suits, appeared at the hotel or were seen
stalking about captured German trenches, their garb as odd in that
ordered world of khaki as powdered wig, knee-breeches and silver buckles
strolling up Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue. Prime ministers, Cabinet
members, great financiers, potentates, j