Milliard goes from house to house with the letters for each squadron. Here he comes. A sound of footsteps in the yard. We raise our heads; is it he? It is. He knocks on the window-pane. We all spring to the door. The postman is welcomed as eagerly as though he were the bearer of victory and peace. He draws up to the lamp, reads the envelopes, and sits down. If there are but few letters he apologizes. Henriot and he chatter away by the fireside for a few minutes. "Come, boys, quick, give me your letters," says Milliard. "I have three more squadrons to serve." Our thanks follow him right into the yard. To bed early this evening. _Tuesday, 8th December._ We do the best we can to clean our clothes. A knife has to be used for scraping coats and puttees, to which great scales of mud are sticking. Disputes burst out. Who is the first for the hand-basin? Some such remark as the following is heard-- "You're not going to keep it all to yourself, as you did last time, I suppose?" The charge of selfishness is the one most frequently hurled at another man's head. "You make use of it yourself first," says one man, "and then you think of others." "Well, and what of yourself? Yesterday you refused me a bar of chocolate, because of the trouble it would have given you to unfasten your haversack." "And you, the other day when preparing mess, didn't you go away and leave me to carry a huge pail all alone? Did you, or did you not?" Such is the conversation of heroes! The whole of the first day in quarters is spent in cleaning. At night all six of us appear shaven and brushed, combed and washed, and the _far niente_ begins. A feeling of boredom comes over us. There is nothing to remind us that we are at war, none of war's accoutrements, at all events. Reymond has adopted a colourist's costume to rest in: a black and yellow streaked cap, a short green woollen jacket, blue cloth trousers, grey gaiters, a violet girdle from which hangs a broad knife in its sheath, a red and white-specked tobacco-pouch, and a long wick of orange-coloured tinder. The effect seems to him harmonious, and the lieutenant who happened to pass along and dropped in a few minutes ago appeared delighted and somewhat surprised. The rest content themselves with a more sober get-up, though just as little military in style: blue cloth or chestnut velvet trousers, slippers, and frequently a woollen cap. Nothing happens of a nature to enliven our existence. Drill in the morning, but this is something it is impossible to "cut."