"Oh, indeed! Then you cannot even tolerate ordinary politeness in a man?" "Politeness! Just look at yourself in a mirror. You would be better employed in giving yourself a scrub down." At eight o'clock the corner of the grotto containing the first squadron is illuminated with a goodly number of candles. In the first place, for a successful Christmas-eve celebration we must have some sourcrout--Alsatian, of course. There are five large tins of it, along with a knuckle of ham. Then follow all kinds of sausages, one of which has come from Milan. We speedily dispatch it, at the same time exhorting our "Latin sister" to join in with us. Carried away by an irresistible impulse, the squadron takes by assault several _pâtés de foie gras_. The dessert is most varied: pears, oranges, preserves in jars, in tubes and in pails, a pudding which flames up when you apply a match to it, and, last of all, a drink which the cook has most carefully prepared: coffee with the real odour of coffee. It is past ten o'clock. The bottles are empty. Every one is very gay and lively; no one intoxicated. So pleasant an evening cannot end without music. The concert begins with our old marching songs, those we used to sing at drill, or when tramping the dusty roads, to quicken our speed, songs which we run the risk of forgetting in this accursed war where we scarcely stir a foot. The words are not invariably to be recommended, but the familiar swing and rhythm which used to make us forget the weight of our haversacks, this evening make us forget our burdens of worry and _ennui_. Most conscientiously do we brawl out the tunes. The great advantage of the grotto lies in the fact that one can shout as loud as one pleases. The lieutenant lifts up the tent canvas with which we have barricaded our den. "Well! This is something like! You are doing it! May I come in?" "Of course, _mon lieutenant_!" We give him a seat on an empty bag, and the concert recommences. Singers, with some pretence to a voice, try hard to carry off their sentimental or grandiloquent ditties, but it is the motley repertoire of absurdity and ridicule that meets with the success of the evening: the songs of Montmartre, artistes' refrains, fertile in spicy nonsense. We mark time by tapping our empty plates with the back of the hand. The noisy merriment is intensified when we come to the chorus. With frenzied enthusiasm the squadron shouts out the chorus of Hervé's _Turcs_-- _Nous, nous sommes les soldats Et nous marchons au pas, Plus souvent au trépas...._ And now Charensac comes forward. "Make way for the Ambassador of Auvergne," barks out Varlet. "Quite right, I am from Auvergne, and I'm going to dance the _bourrée_."