One said: “Oh, I left my umbrella in a hotel in Paris.” The other replied: “Never fear, you will be able to go and get it next week.” “Pray, do not trouble yourselves,” interrupted Mme. Metzinger; “my son, who is a captain in the French army, will undertake to bring it himself.” The two officers alighted hastily at the next station. “I KNOW NOTHING, SIR!” The Cologne correspondent of _Der Tyd_ says: “An endless train rolls into the station at Cologne. In it have arrived 700 French prisoners taken at Muelhausen and Lagarde, Alsace-Lorraine. They were dressed in red trousers and short, dark-blue coats. One could see that they had been in a fight. They were unkempt and badly in need of a wash and a shave. “I remember having read somewhere that a French Senator had declared there was a great shortage of shoes for the French troops. I have seen 100,000 German soldiers going to the front, every one of them wearing a brand new pair of russet shoes, heavy enough to withstand any campaign. But there were no such shoes among these French prisoners. Their footgear was of a flimsy character and worn so badly that in most cases their toes were protruding. They ate greedily of bread and drank eagerly the tea and coffee that were handed to them. “The faces of most of them were blank and expressionless. They conversed among themselves in an undertone. I asked one something about Lagarde. “‘I know nothing,’ he answered sullenly. “But after I told him he was speaking with a Hollander and not with a German he modified his reply to: ‘I will say nothing, sir.’” DRUNK WITH BATTLE JOY To the Paris _Matin’s_ correspondent at Chartres, a colonial infantryman, wounded at Charleroi, told his experiences in the battle: “We marched with our African comrades against the Prussian guard,” he said. “We advanced in bounds amid the humming bullets, using every bit of cover we could. We felt intoxicated with the joy of battle. “I couldn’t say how long the action lasted. All I remember is that we fired our last shot within fifty yards of the enemy. Then it was the pitiless thrust of cold steel. It would have given us the victory, for however intrepid and steady are the troops we fight against there are no soldiers in the world able to resist the Turcos’ bayonet charge.” MODERN BULLETS DRILL CLEAN “It is comforting to learn that dozens of the wounded in the great conflict hardly suffer at all. Modern bullets are so small and hot and come with such velocity that they drill a hole even through the bone and disinfect as they pass, on account of the heat,” cables a correspondent. “One man was shot through the pit of the stomach, the bullet having gone out at the back, just missing the spine. It was two days after the wound was received, and the man was sitting up and asking the doctor when he could go back and if it would be more than a week before he could again be at the enemy.