They made other similar remarks; commented unfavorably upon the alignment; “You were a bit late in coming,” they said. Of course our boys had answers, and to these the Tommies had further answers, and this encounter of wits very naturally led to a result which could not possibly have been happier. I don’t know what the Tommies expected the Yankees to do. I suppose they were as ignorant of our nature as we of theirs, and that they entertained preconceived notions. They suddenly found that we were, once again to quote Mr. Kipling, “bachelors in barricks most remarkable like” themselves. An American first sergeant hit a British first sergeant. Instantly a thousand men were milling. For thirty minutes they kept at it. Warriors reeled together and fell and rose and got it in the neck and the jaw and the eye and the nose--and all the while the British and American officers, splendidly discreet, saw none of it. British soldiers were carried back to their streets, still fighting, bunged Yankees staggered everywhere--but not an officer saw any of it. Black eyes the next day, and other tokens, very plainly showed who had been at this party. Thereafter a much better feeling prevailed between Tommies and Yanks. A more peaceful contact produced excellent consequences at an encampment of Americans in England. The Americans had brought over an idea, apparently, that the English were “easy.” They tried it on in sundry ways, but ended by the discovery that, while engaged upon this enterprise, they had been in sundry ways quite completely “done” themselves. This gave them a respect for their English cousins which they had never felt before. Here is another tale, similar in moral. This occurred at Brest, in France. In the Y hut sat an English lady, one of the hostesses. To her came a young American marine with whom she already had some acquaintance. This led him to ask for her advice. He said to her that as his permission was of only seventy-two hours, he wanted to be as economical of his time as he could and see everything best worth while for him to see during his leave. Would she, therefore, tell him what things in Paris were the most interesting and in what order he had best take them? She replied with another suggestion; why not, she said, ask for permission for England? This would give him two weeks instead of seventy-two hours. At this he burst out violently that he would not set foot in England; that he never wanted to have anything to do with England or with the English: “Why, I am a marine!” he exclaimed, “and we marines would sooner knock down any English sailor than speak to him.”