of water was steaming. They had condensed
milk and cocoa, and made us up mugs of it, and I never, anywhere,
tasted anything so good.

There were two tiers of bunks in the room, but around the wall there
was an open space where there were some little tables. Two of the
Englishmen, who were playing cards, put them away and offered us
their table.

"Here, boys, be comfortable; sit right down here and let us see you
eat."

We let them see us! We ate like wolf-hounds. We ate, not until we
were satisfied, but until we were ashamed! And still the invitations
to eat were heard on every side. We were welcome to the last crumb
they had!

When at last we stopped, they began to tell us about the camp. It
seemed that the distinguishing feature was _lice!_ It had never been
fumigated, and the condition was indescribable. "We're bad enough,"
one of the Englishmen said, "but the Russians are in holes."

Then they told us what they had done to attract the attention of the
authorities. The branch camps are never inspected or visited, as
are the main camps such as Cellelager itself and Giessen, and so
conditions in the out-of-the-way camps have been allowed to sink far
below the level of these.

"We each wrote a card to some one in England, telling them about the
lice. We would have stretched it--if we could--but we couldn't. We
drew pictures, and told what these lice could do; especially we told
about the Russians, and how bad they were. There are twenty-one of
us, and there went out twenty-one cards all dealing with the same
subject. The censor began to feel crawly, I'll bet, before he got far
into reading them, and he would not let one of those cards out of
Germany. It wouldn't have sounded very good to the neutral countries.
So along came one of the head officers. He came in swaggering, but,
by George, he went out scratching! And he certainly got something
moving. We're all going down to Cellelager to-morrow to be fumigated;
and while we're out, there's going to be a real old-fashioned
house-cleaning! You're just in time, boys. Have you got any?"

"We did not have any," we said, "when we came."

"Well, you'll get them here, just sitting around. They're all over
the floor and crawl up the leg of your chair; they crawl up the wall
and across the ceiling and drop down on your head and down the back
of your collar; they're in the walls and in the beds now. But their
days are numbered, for we are all going up to Cellelager to-mo