At Amiens my surgeon friend, who had over twelve hundred war operations to his credit in the past six months, much regretted that I could not be used at the moment,--much regretted; but still regretted. I began to feel that the gods of ill luck were camping on my trail. I went on to Paris. Here my letters of introduction were looked at with anxiety and I with suspicion, for in the early months of the war some foreign surgeons were found to be giving information to the enemy. At any rate, though courtesies and promises were showered upon me, I remained a useless guest at my hotel in the Rue de Rivoli until I reached an almost desperate stage, realizing that, though surgeons were urgently needed, I could not be of service. Sickly visions of returning home after a futile attempt to be of use came to me, when suddenly luck changed. The director of the Ambulance Anglo-Française in the Château de Rimberlieu came to Paris in search of assistance. Being an Englishman, he looked in at the British Red Cross in the Avenue d'Ièna where they told him of this forlorn Canadian who had been haunting their offices, but of whom they had lost track. By a bit of luck their commanding officer met me that afternoon on the Place de l'Opéra, and gave me the director's address at the Hotel de Crillon. I hurried at once to call upon him, and offered to take any position from chauffeur to surgeon. There is a biblical quotation that the meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the earth. I inherited the surgeoncy--not a lucrative inheritance, it must be admitted, for it carried no salary, no railway fares, no uniform, all of which must be supplied by the inheritor. After obtaining a _sauf conduit_ from the military authorities to take me as far as Creille, I left on the train that afternoon for Compiègne, sixty miles to the north, accompanied by an affable young Red Cross orderly, of English parents and Paris birth, who in civil life was a drygoods salesman. At Creille, which was the beginning of the war zone, our troubles began. I was in civilian dress, my uniform not yet being completed. The French military officers here were almost adamant. My passport, director's letter, Red Cross authority, all proved of no avail to get me further. Rather strangely, the letter which obtained the desired permission to proceed was an ordinary letter of introduction from a prominent French Canadian parliamentarian which I had in my pocket. Presto! The officer knew his name, and by I went. We arrived at Compiègne about midnight, and for the first time we heard the sound of the guns ten miles away. As we were now only seven miles from the Château, we thought our troubles were over. But we had reckoned without the sous-prefet de police, who said in the morning when we called that we could go no further without a special permit. "That chap's a bit of an awss," remarked my young friend, expressing my sentiments to a nicety.