Well, this morning I saw some more rides impending and didn’t like it, so asked the _chef de piste_ to put me with another monitor. He had to know why and I registered my kick, which practically said that the first monitor didn’t know his business and couldn’t drive, that I was scared to ride with him. The _chef_ was a bit sarcastic and told me to take two rides with another monitor to show how _I_ could make a _virage_. I did it the way I’ve been accustomed to, made a fairly short turn; when we got down, the monitor said “_Epatant_” (Am. “stunning”) or something like that to the _chef_. The _chef_ had meanwhile communicated my complaint to the first monitor and he was the maddest man I ever saw. Demanded what “_Ce type là_” (indicating me) wanted, said the _virages_ I had just made were dangerously banked (the monitor I was with didn’t mind, though) and then all three started arguing at once at me and I spelled all the French I knew. About that time I thought of what you had just told me in a letter about trusting in Latin, which advice and remarks I have come to agree with very much (my admiration for the French has waxed less daily), and here I realized that I had very successfully made a fool out of a man who was supposed to be my teacher, and he fully resented it. Then, of all things, the lieutenant, without further remarks, said I was to continue with my first monitor. My heart sank into my feet. I had visions of staying in that class without rides or with only rides and fights for months; I rode no more this morning and what was my delight to find this evening that my bewhiskered pal had left on permission. I got another monitor, a fine one who put his hands on the side of the machine and let me do everything with a bit of assistance on the landing, which is different from what I’ve been doing on the Caudron. Seven rides and a finish--the twenty-three-metre tomorrow morning. I wasn’t very good, but got by. X September 14, 1917. Things for me are going all right. Have made progress on the Nieuport since last I wrote and will fly alone soon. As regards the U. S. Army, things are at a standstill until I get to Paris which will be a week or so. I hope to go to the front in a French _escadrille_ and in an American uniform. Some say it can be done; some that it cannot. It sounds so sensible that I am afraid there must be some regulation against it. XI September 27, 1917.