Under all circumstances the Major is cheerful--and he has a very clear idea of when it is permissible to go around an order. Also the Town-Major invariably has the same effect on him as such an unwelcome visitor as a skunk at a garden-party would have on the garden-party. Having consigned the aforesaid T.-M. to perdition in Canadian, English, French, and Doukhobor, he said: “We are going to have billets for the men, and we are going to have billets for ourselves.” That quite settled the matter, as far as we Company officers were concerned. In the course of the next half-hour we had swiped an empty street and a half for the men, and put them into it, and then we gathered together, seven strong, and proceeded to hunt for our own quarters. There is a very strongly developed scouting instinct among the Canadian forces in the Field. Moreover, we are not overawed by outward appearances. In the centre of the town we found a château; and an hour later we were lunching there comfortably ensconed in three-legged arm-chairs, with a real bowl of real flowers on the table, and certain oddments of cut-glass (found gleefully by the batmen) reflecting the bubbling vintage of the house of Moët et Chandon. Our dining-hall was about sixty feet by twenty, and we each had a bedroom of proportionate size, with a bed of sorts in it. Moreover, the place was most wonderfully clean--it might almost have been prepared for us--and McFinnigan, our cook, was in the seventh heaven of delight because he had found a real stove with an oven. “I cannot understand,” said the Major, “how it is no one is in this place. It’s good enough for a Divisional Commander.” There was actually a bath in the place with water running in the taps. Jones, always something of a pessimist, shook his head when he saw the bath. “Look here, all you boys,” he said, “this is no place for us. There is an unwritten law in this outfit that no man, unless he wears red and gold things plastered all over his person, shall have more than one bath in one month. Now _I_ had one three weeks ago, and I am still---- but why dwell on it?” Needless to say he was ruled out of order. Just to show our darned independence, we decided to invite most of the other officers of the battalion to dinner that evening, “plenty much swank” and all that kind of thing. Would that we had thought better of it. Of course we eventually decided to make a real banquet of it, appointed a regular mess committee, went and saw the Paymaster, and sent orderlies dashing madly forth to buy up all the liqueurs, Scotch, soda, and other potations that make glad the heart of man. We arranged for a four-course dinner, paraded the batmen and distributed back-sheesh and forcible addresses on the subjects of table-laying and how to balance the soup and unplop the bubbly.