My trip to Pau I put down to experience. I discovered one schedule not to travel by in future. Leaving Avord at 2:15 I got to Bourges at 2:45 and found that the train left at 7:29. Fortunately, there was another chap from the school on the train, Arthur Bluthenthal, an old Princeton football star, whom I have gotten to know quite well, so we managed to waste the afternoon together. At 7:29 I started another half hour’s journey, at the end of which the timetable said that the train for Bordeaux left at 10:30 (this is all P. M.). At this town there were some American engineers, so I embraced the fellow countrymen in a strange land. Finished up a not very gay evening by attending the movies, a most odd institution. Clouds of tobacco smoke obscured the screen, and most of the action was around the bar at one side of the hall. Nobody was drunk, but nearly every one was drinking and very gay. This was merely Saturday night in a small town of the Provinces--not in gay Paree. At 10:15 I got in a first class compartment and tried to find a comfortable position in which to sleep. At 2:15 A. M. I had mussed up my clothes considerably, lost my temper and not slept a wink. Then we had to change again. The rest of the morning I sat opposite an American officer, a queer old fogey, and we tried to kid each other into thinking we were sleeping, with no success. Arrived at Bordeaux at 7 A. M., and found that the train for Pau left immediately, so I missed out on breakfast, too--Oh, it was a hectic trip. My idea of a very unpleasant occupation is that of a travelling salesman in France. XII October 22, 1917. Ah, ----[D]: Once more I take my pen in hand to lay at your feet the burdens of an overwrought (how is that word spelled?) mind, said burdens being caused by a most unpleasant captain. Just because I was in Paris for a day and a half without a permission, he handed me eight days of jail, and today for nothing at all he hauled me out in front of the entire division and got quite angered when I told him in extremely broken French that I hadn’t understood a word. But as the jail doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t have to be served, I am not worrying very much. The afternoon is misty and there isn’t a chance of flying, so he takes particular care that nobody leave the _piste_ though there is absolutely nothing to do there, no chance to get warm or comfortable. Which at least gives me a perfect alibi for poor penmanship as I’m sitting in a machine and quite uncomfortable.