"Here's my answer," he said, reading from a notebook leaf: "Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little village in France. With regard to my present profession, will inform you that I am an expert in ammunition trafficking and am at present occupied in exporting large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route. Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes for youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding the sacred traditions of our school. After all, we old boys should do something to help along the cause. Yours to best the Kaiser. ----, Major. ---- Field Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France." "I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major as he folded the letter and addressed an envelope. It rather seemed to me that it would but before I could finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his blankets. By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc wrought by the shells that had arrived in the night. I had thought in seeing refugees moving southward along the roads, that there was little variety of articles related to human existence that they failed to carry away with them. But one inspection of the abandoned abodes of the unfortunate peasants of Serevilliers was enough to convince me of the greater variety of things that had to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and the French peasants pride themselves upon never throwing anything away. The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded clothing of all ages, discarded but saved. Old shoes and dresses, ceremonial high hats and frock coats, brought forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on the floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china. Shutters and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the village _estaminet_ much mud had been tracked in by exploring feet and the red tiled floor was littered with straw and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the antiquary. The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered billiard table, but the six American soldiers billeted in the cellar beneath had overcome this discrepancy. They enjoyed after dinner billiards just the same with three large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. A croquet ball is a romping substitute when it hits the green cushions. That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the next town to the north. Men who do this job are, in my opinion, the most daring in any organisation that depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone communication. For them, there is no shelter when a deluge of shells pours upon a field across which their wire is laid. Without protection of any kind from the flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot to repair the cut wires and restore communication. During one of these shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side _abri_ and prepared to await clearer weather.