nce was ready she climbed into it with alacrity, although with a
feeling of gratitude because the _Directrice_ had promised a mass for
her dead child.

"These Belgians!" said a French soldier. "How prosperous they will be
after the war! How much money they will make from the Americans, and
from the others who come to see the ruins!"

And as an afterthought, in an undertone, he added: "_Ces sales
Belges!_"

THE INTERVAL

As an orderly, Erard wasn't much good. He never waited upon the patients
if he could help it, and when he couldn't help it, he was so
disagreeable that they wished they had not asked him for things. The
newcomers, who had been in the hospital only a few days, used to think
he was deaf, since he failed to hear their requests, and they did not
like to yell at him, out of consideration for their comrades in the
adjoining beds. Nor was he a success at sweeping the ward, since he did
it with the broom in one hand and a copy of the _Petit Parisien_ in the
other--in fact, when he sat down on a bed away at the end and frankly
gave himself up to a two-year-old copy of _Le Rire_, sent out with a lot
of old magazines for the patients, he was no less effective than when
he sulkily worked. There was just one thing he liked and did well, and
that was to watch for the Generals. He was an expert in recognizing them
when they were as yet a long way off. He used to slouch against the
window panes and keep a keen eye upon the _trottoir_ on such days or at
such hours as the Generals were likely to appear. Upon catching sight of
the oak-leaves in the distance, he would at once notify the ward, so
that the orderlies and the nurse could tidy up things before the General
made rounds. He had a very keen eye for oak-leaves--the golden
oak-leaves on the General's _kepi_--and he never by any chance gave a
false alarm or mistook a colonel in the distance, and so put us to
tidying up unnecessarily. He did not help with the work of course, but
continued leaning against the window, reporting the General's progress
up the _trottoir_--that he had now gone into Salle III.--that he had
left Salle III. and was conversing outside Salle II.--that he was now,
positively, on his way up the incline leading into Salle I., and would
be upon us any minute. Sometimes the General lingered unnecessarily long
on the incline, the wooden slope leading up to the ward, in which case
he was not visible from the window, and Erard would amuse us b