Man cannot live by bread alone--nor may he, even with a supplementary basin of soup! Immediately after dinner on the Saturday evening of my arrival in Carlsruhe, a steady stream of officers set in towards the _salon d’appel_. Being still without chart or compass as regards the camp, I also drifted in this direction, and found that at the far end of the hall a stage was erected, and that a cosmopolitan audience was already gathered in the expectant dusk of the auditorium. A few rows of forms from the court served as dress circle and stalls; later arrivals brought their own chairs or stools from the dormitories; standing in the background, the orderlies, obviously washed of their week’s labours in the kitchen or the camp, were the gods, and from their Olympus gave occasional encouragement, or passed comment and criticism upon the performance. On this particular evening, together with various musical and vocal efforts, there was a very capable representation by a cast of French officers, of Max Maurey’s comedy in one act, “Asile de Nuit.” Prior to the enactment, and for the benefit of those in the audience who might be innocent of French, a British officer gave out the _motif_ in English. As I sat contentedly in my place--the burden of the wearinesses of the last weeks fallen from my shoulders--it was borne in upon me that much of the success of a play is in the eager and receptive mood of the audience; also that in the naïve freshness of an amateur performance is a charm which has too frequently perished in the more finished production of the professional actor. At all events, in “Asile de Nuit”--the “Night Refuge”--I found indeed refuge for the night! Monsieur the Superintendent of an--uncharitable--institution, is pompous, proud, and overbearing, particularly to his unwelcome clients. It is just on the closing hour of nine, and he is preparing to depart for the business of his favourite café, when one of these waifs blows in. Monsieur storms at the tramp for the lateness of the hour, for the ludicrousness of his name, for anything and everything, and ultimately, after passing him over to a brow-beaten assistant for the condign punishment of a bath, goes off himself for a beer. He returns almost immediately, quite chapfallen. He has learned that the Superintendent of another “Refuge” has been dismissed for failing to entertain an angel unawares in the person of a disguised journalist. He is persuaded that the piece of ragged illiteracy which he himself is harbouring is a pen also charged and pointed for his undoing. Consequently the amazed vagrant is overwhelmed with clothing from the Superintendent’s own wardrobe, cigars from his private cabinet; he is even finally permitted to escape the last indignity of ablution! [Illustration: A CARLSRUHE CONCERT PROGRAMME.]