A camion came bowling along so we hopped aboard. Of course it was going to the wrong village, but we didn’t worry—one can always catch a ride. At Mézières the truck pulled up and we jumped off. It was still raining and we weren’t what you would call dry. Hungry and not a thing could be had in the way of food. Nothing in the shops, but we did manage to get coffee. Along towards night, we ran into a Frenchman that set us up to one fine supper with wine and rum. About that time we decided we might as well be setting out for the camp. It was raining great guns and was so dark that we gave it up as a bad job. Instead we got a room over a café. The woman who ran the place came over on the ark. She had remained during the years that the Boche held the town, and, as a consequence kept running in German with her French—something that happens quite frequently in these parts. Our room was a wonder. The bed boasted seven mattresses; reminded me of the fairy story of how to tell a real princess—when a bunch of Janes claimed the crown and to test them out they put them to bed on a stack of mattresses. Underneath was a pea. The fake ones slept like a log, but she of the purple couldn’t sleep at all and, in the morning, she was black and blue from the lump raised by the pea. We either are not of the purple or there was nothing under the mattresses, for we certainly tore off the sleep. Just before we turned in there was an awful banging on Madame’s door, and yells in French, German, and Sanscrit I guess. She had locked herself in. We went out and discovered the key sticking into the lock of her door. We gave it a turn, but the door stayed shut. We gave it a couple of more turns, and tried other combinations—still the door refused to open. In the meantime the old girl was yelling “nicht’s” and “ja’s” and French cuss words. We expected the whole town to show up. Finally Bill had the brilliant idea of seeing how our door worked. We went over to try it out and in fooling with it the door knob came out in my hand. I went over, stuck it into Madame’s door and “Voilà” the caged bird was free. In the morning we set out for Flize. [Illustration: G-O-S-H KID I SURE WAS POUNDING MY EAR! LETS STAY HERE ’TILL THEY SEND FOR US! HURRY UP WE’VE GOT TO SHOW SPEED TO GET BACK BEFORE DARK!] [Illustration: NEW YORK—DAMN FINE! GO TO HELL! GOOD NIGHT! YES—MOVING PICTURES—VOTES FOR WOMEN! THATS RIGHT KID! ONE MORE LESSON ’ND YOU’L TALK JUST LIKE A’N AMERICAN.]