His greatest chum, and one of mine--Charles Fortune--was standing outside a _café_ in the big Place, not far from the Vieille Bourse, with its richly-carved Renaissance front. Here there was a dense crowd, but they kept at a respectful distance from Fortune, who, with his red tabs and red-and-blue arm-band and row of ribbons (all gained by heroic service over a blotting-pad in a Nissen hut) looked to them, no doubt, like a great general. He had his “heroic” face on, rather mystical and saintly. (He had a variety of faces for divers occasions--such as the “sheep’s face” in the presence of generals who disliked brilliant men, the “intelligent” facer-bright and inquiring--for senior officers who liked easy questions to which they could give portentous answers, the “noble” face for the benefit of military chaplains, foreign visitors to the war-zone, and batmen before they discovered his sense of humour; and the “old-English-gentleman” face at times for young Harding, who belonged to a county family with all its traditions, politics, and instincts, and permitted Fortune to pull his leg, to criticise generals, and denounce the British Empire as a licensed jester.) Fortune was addressing four gentlemen of the Town Council of Lille who stood before him, holding ancient top-hats. “Gentlemen,” said Charles Fortune in deliberate French, with an exaggerated accent, “I appreciate very much the honour you have just paid me by singing that heroic old song, ‘It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.’ I desire, however, to explain to you that it is not as yet the National Anthem of the British people, and that, personally, I have never been to Tipperary, that I should find some difficulty in finding that place on the map, and that I never want to go there. This, however, is of small importance, except to British generals, to whom all small things are of great importance--revealing, therefore, their minute attention to details, even when it does not matter--which, I may say, is the true test of the military mind which is so gloriously winning the war, after many glorious defeats (I mean victories) and----” (Here Fortune became rather tangled in his French grammar, but rescued himself after a still more heroic look). “And it is with the deepest satisfaction, the most profound emotion, that I find myself in this great city of Lille on the day of liberation, and on behalf of the British Army, of which I am a humble representative, in spite of these ribbons which I wear on my somewhat expansive chest, I thank you from my heart, with the words, ‘_la France!_’”