At that point the Y.M.C.A. came to our aid. It gave us the use of one of the best buildings in the camp, originally meant for an officers' club. It was generous beyond hope. The house was lighted, heated, furnished, in many ways transformed, at the expense of the Y.M.C.A. We were supplied with a magic-lantern, books, games, boxing gloves, a piano, writing-paper, everything we dared to ask for. Without the help of the Y.M.C.A. that club could never have come into existence. And the association deserves credit not only for generosity in material things, but for its liberal spirit. The club was not run according to Y.M.C.A. rules, and was an embarrassing changeling child in their nursery, just as it was a suspicious innovation under the military system. We held an opening meeting, and the colonel--one of our most helpful friends--agreed to give the boys an address. I wonder if any other club opened quite as that one. In our eagerness to get to work we took possession of our club house before it was ready for us. There was no light. There was almost no furniture. There was no organisation. We had very little in the way of settled plan. But we had boys, eight or nine hundred of them, about double as many as the largest room in the building would hold. They were marched down from their various camps by sergeants. For the most part they arrived about an hour before the proper time. The sergeants, quite reasonably, considered that their responsibility ended when the boys passed through the doors of the club. The boys took the view that at that moment their opportunity began. They rioted. Every window in the place was shattered. Everything else breakable--fortunately there was not much--was smashed into small bits. A Y.M.C.A. worker, a young man lent to us for the occasion, and recommended as experienced with boys' clubs in London, fled to a small room and locked himself in. The tumult became so terrific that an officer of high standing and importance, whose office was in the neighbourhood, sent an orderly to us with threats. It was one of the occasions on which it is good to be an Irishman. We have been accustomed to riots all our lives, and mind them less than most other people. We know--this is a fact which Englishmen find it difficult to grasp--that cheerful rioters seldom mean to do any serious mischief. Yet, I think, even J.'s heart must have failed him a little. Very soon the colonel, who was to open the club with his address, would arrive. He was the best and staunchest of friends. He had fought battles for the club and patiently combated the objections in high quarters. But he did like order and discipline.