Success ofttimes breeds foolhardiness, and in an evil hour, finding that we had exhausted the _répertoire_ our memories offered us, of plots from the Parisian stage, we decided to draw on local incidents for the construction of our plays. At first all went well, for such farces as _The De-Tam's Defeat_, in which that chief, after refusing the hand of the Governor-General's daughter and a big dowry, died through incautiously tasting the contents of a tin of bully-beef, supplied by the Commissariat for the use of the troops, were successful, and produced no untoward results. But, craving for still greater popularity, we were foolish enough to put upon our stage the too transparently caricatured counterpart of one of the senior non-commissioned officers in the company of native troops, who, though an excellent soldier, was possessed of many eccentricities. This veteran resented our impudence, and we were reported and obliged to suspend our performances. The instruments were placed in the upper storey of the little telegraph station, and I was in the habit of sitting upstairs for a couple of hours each evening with either of my friends who happened to be on duty. Here we would chat and smoke--for the messages were few and far between after eight--and while away the time till eleven. On the evening of 22nd May I was there as usual; Bougand was on duty, and we had been exchanging opinions concerning the adjutant, who had succeeded in obtaining the _clôture_ of our theatre, when our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a call on the Morse from Thaï-Nguyen. In the middle of the message he was receiving, my companion gave a sudden whoop of astonishment; though this did not cause me much emotion, for I was accustomed by now to his pet mania, which consisted in telling me all sorts of tall stories concerning the wires he received, and I prepared myself to greet a yarn about the capture of De-Tam, or my promotion to the much-desired dignity of a full blown corporal. When the message was finished, and he had rapped back that he had read the same correctly, he jumped up excitedly, came over to me and, holding out his hand, shouted: "_Mon vieux_, I congratulate you!" "_Blagueur!_" I answered. "Spare me your mouldy joke. It's much too hot to laugh, so be sensible. Let's take a glass of wine, if any remains in the bottle, and then I'll go to bed." "I assure you----" He almost yelled it, but I would not let him go on, and taunted him with the staleness of the joke he was trying to play; till, in despair of obtaining a hearing, he rushed over to the instrument, tore off the band and handed it to me to read. To my amazement I saw, clearly printed in little blue letters upon the narrow strip of paper, beyond the possibility of a hoax, the following message: