The atmosphere is supposed to be religious, and the men recognise the fact by refraining from the use of their favourite words even when no lady worker is within earshot. The talk in a Y.M.C.A. hut is sometimes loud. The laughter is frequent. But a young girl might walk about invisible among the men without hearing an expression which would shock her, so long as she remained inside the four walls. There are also supposed to be prayers every night and there is a voluntary service, of a very free and easy kind, on Sunday evenings. Those evening prayers, theoretically a beautiful and moving ending to the day's labour, were practically a very difficult business. I have been in huts when the first hint of prayers, the production of a bundle of hymn-books, was the signal for a stampede of men. By the time the pianist was ready to play the hut was empty, save for two or three unwilling victims who had been cornered by an energetic lady. In the early days the "leader" of the hut was generally a young man of the kind who would join a Christian Association in the days before the war, and the lady workers, sometimes, but not always, were of the same way of thinking. They were desperately in earnest about prayers and determined, though I think unfair ways were adopted, to secure congregations. A concert drew a crowded audience, and it seemed desirable to attach prayers to the last item of the performance so closely that there was no time to escape. I remember scenes, not without an element of comedy in them, but singularly unedifying. A young lady, prettily dressed and pleasant to look at, recited a poem about a certain "nursie" who in the course of her professional duties tended one "Percy." In the second verse nursie fell in love with Percy, and, very properly, Percy with her. In the third verse they were married. In the fourth verse we came on nursie nursing (business here by the reciter as if holding a baby) "another little Percy." The audience shouts with laughter, yells applause, and wants to encore. The hut leader seizes his opportunity, announces prayers, and the men, choking down their giggles over nursie, find themselves singing "When I survey the wondrous cross." My own impression is that prayers cannot with decency follow hard on a Y.M.C.A. concert. The mind and soul sides of the red triangle seem to join at an angle which is particularly aggressive. The body side, on the other hand, works in comparatively comfortably with both. Tea and cake have long had a semi-sacramental value in some religious circles, and the steam of cocoa or hot malted milk blends easily with the hot air of a "Nursie-Percy" concert or the serener atmosphere of "Abide with Me."