But I run on (and my candle runs down) and I give you no news. This is our last night here, and I ought to be asleep in my flea-bag, for we make an early start to-morrow for our first go in the trenches. But it's jolly yarning here to you, while the whole village is asleep, and no chits are coming in, and the Battalion Orderly Room over the way is black and silent as the grave, except for the sentry's footsteps in the mud. I'm in rather good quarters here, in the Mayor's house. When we left that first village--I'm afraid I haven't written since--we had three days of marching, sleeping in different billets each night. Here in this place, twelve miles from the firing line, we've had five days; practising with live bombs, getting issues of trench kit, and generally making last preparations. To-morrow night we sleep in tents close to the line and begin going into trenches for instruction. But, look here, before I turn in, I must just tell you about this household and my hot bath last night. The town is a queer little place; farming centre, you know. The farm-houses are all inside the village, and mine--M. le Maire's--is one of the best. From the street you see huge great double doors, that a laden wagon can drive through, in a white wall. That is the granary wall. You enter by the big archway into a big open yard, the centre part of which is a wide-spreading dung-hill and reservoir. All round the yard are sheds and stables enclosing it, and facing you at the back the low, long white house, with steps leading up to the front door, which opens into the kitchen. This is also the living-room of M. le Maire and his aged mother. Their family lived here before the Revolution, and the three sturdy young women and one old, old man employed on the farm, all live in the house. M. le Maire is a warm man, reputed to have a thorough mastery of the English tongue, among other things, as a result of "college" education. So I gather from the really delightful old mother, who, though bent nearly double, appears to run the whole show, including the Town Hall opposite our Battalion Headquarters. I have never succeeded in inducing the Mayor to speak a word of English, but he has a little dictionary like a prayer-book, with perfectly blinding print, and somehow carries on long and apparently enjoyable conversations with my batman (who certainly has no French), though, as I say, one never heard a word of English on his lips.