It is amazing how obtuse I suddenly become. I forgot that the Job-Lepouses have dinned into my brain for the past fortnight the pleasing legend that a hundred and forty thousand Frenchmen, not to speak of Belgians, are defending Namur, and that every other tree in the country side has been cut down to pile up barricades. I swear I have no knowledge of the (possibly true) assertion that the _avant-garde_ of the French troops, two hundred men and officers, are at Laroche. I am duller witted all of a sudden than the village idiot who has, by the way, refuted the charge of idiotcy by keeping mostly to the fields since the Germans came. IN THE BAR Some infantry, I think they were Landwehr, on guard here to-day, were quite distressed at the sight of weeping women and children. Later in the day a little deputation of them waited upon me at the inn. “Would you please go round the village, Fräulein,” they said, “and tell the women and children that we mean them no harm? Have we not wives and children too?” One of them opened his wallet or pocket-book and showed me the photo of a pretty curly-headed German child. Needless to say, I did go round and reassure the people. The result was that the Landwehr were the richer that evening by the peasants’ last pots of appetising home-made jam. I have to go into the bar and translate in my bad German for the soldiers. Yesterday some of the Uhlans’ horses, picketed in the village street, put their heads through a front window of the inn. I was called in by both sides to assess the damage. It was rather embarrassing, especially as I had to make out the account in greasy German coin! The Uhlans paid up at once, as usual, but the tender-hearted hotel-keeper refused to ask anything approaching the value of the window. The soldiers are annoyed with me sometimes for not being able to procure them special kinds of German beer. Cognac is the drink they love, but the officers have particularly ordered they shall not be served with it. This business of barter and exchange is often very trying. I had a terrible transaction to-day with a Prussian non-commissioned officer over a box of cigars. It nearly turned my hair grey! We ultimately sold it him for a franc. Anyway, I feel proud to have done my share towards the annihilation of the enemy. A few drops of Prussic acid would have been wholesome by comparison! IN THE WOODS _Monday_—Notices have now been posted up in all the Belgian villages that, since the Belgian civilians, both men and women, have shot at the Germans and even killed their wounded, anyone who offers the slightest resistance will be at once shot down. The house to house search for arms is rigorously prosecuted. A man in the village is shot to-day. He was working in the fields and ran away instead of facing round and throwing up his arms when challenged.