"In the meanwhile you make enough clatter to wake the neighbors, if there are any, and visit the storeroom----" "I'm doing nothing wrong, I assure you----" "We will talk it over! I am wondering why I didn't blow out your brains when I found you pillaging the home of poor people--Here you soil the glory and honor of your comrades. Go! you disgust me!" "Me also, I have been through hell like the others, and perhaps to-morrow I shall be killed--yes, I will be killed, I swear it. I'm honest--I no longer know what I'm doing. It's true it's not right. What must I do? I've seen all sides of it--I know no more. Arrest me--here I am!" "Go join your comrades! Go quick. You have time to make reparation--you know what. This secret will rest between you and me. Now go!" The man took himself away without daring to look back and I watched him disappear into the night---- PRECIPITOUS DEPARTURE, VERDUN. _March_, 1916. To-day I returned to Verdun, and LeBlond and I have taken a rest in the comfortable home of M. and Mme. Louis. These worthy persons quit the city with the former's sister, Mme. Joannie, and Habert, our orderly, watches the premises. We have just received a letter from Mme. Joannie dated at Bar-le-Duc, recounting at length her terror and vexation happily over. She must have left so precipitously the necessaries and also the superfluities! She requested us to make a visit to her room and forward the more important objects we should come across. We then entered her room and apart from a few broken glasses everything was still arranged as it was on the day of her departure. Dresses, trinkets, yellow photographs, stuffed animals, dignifiedly seemed to be awaiting her return---- In a corner of the sideboard--her false teeth! Poor, poor Mme. Joannie, you must have been afraid to have abandoned them! "She was afraid of swallowing them," said Habert, between his teeth. THE POILU WHO LOOKED FOR A "GOOD" WOUND, VERDUN (RIGHT BANK). _March_, 1916. We are at work in a narrow position, at the entrance to Tavannes Tunnel. The bombardment is incessant and the air this morning is saturated with that odor of ether and sour apples which we have all breathed down there---- One of my _poilus_, his helmet resting on his ears, strikes a blow with ardor, although he appears to be in a very bad humor, I assure you--There is no doubt about it for a single instant, seeing him sink the stakes anchoring the wire entanglement with heavy blows of the hammer as if he wanted to smash them---- A 105 arrived, breaking a few yards from him, a large fragment skidded on the ground, hitting him on the head---- I see the man make a bound and fall flat on the ground---- With his two hands he tears off his blue helmet, completely crushed, and, contemplating it with bitterness, cries out: "Damn!--with that, I'll never be sent to the rear!" THE POETIC POILU. _March_, 1916. In a dirty sector on a beautiful, sunshiny day----