Madame de Maupin kept a café. Until the soldiers came it did not pay, but she would not keep an Estaminet. It was so hopelessly “vulgaire.” After closing hours, between eight and ten, Madame de Maupin held her Court. Officers gathered in the little back room, and she entertained them, while they drank. She had wit, and she was very handsome. One of her little court, a young officer, fell in love with her. Her husband was dead. Her lover had money, many acres, and position. He proposed to her. She loved him and--she refused him, “because,” she said simply, “you would not be happy.” He was sent to the Somme. Madame de Maupin closed her Estaminet and vanished. There is a story told, which no one believes, of a woman, dressed in a private’s uniform of the British army, who was found, killed, among the ruins of Thiepval. She lay beside a wounded officer, who died of his wounds soon after. He had been tended by some one, for his wounds were dressed. In his tunic pocket was a woman’s photograph, but a piece of shrapnel had disfigured it beyond recognition. But, as I said, no one believes the story. “OTHER INHABITANTS” There is a little story told of two young subalterns, neither of whom could speak the lingua Franca, who went one day to the Estaminet des Bons Copins, not five thousand miles from Ploegstraete woods, to buy some of the necessities of life, for the Estaminet was a little store as well as a road-house. Both of the said subalterns had but recently arrived in Flanders, from a very spick and span training area, and neither was yet accustomed to the ways of war, nor to the minor discomforts caused by inhabitants other than those of the country, albeit native to it from the egg, as it were. They entered the Bons Copins, and having bought cigarettes and a few odds and ends, one of them suddenly remembered that he wanted a new pair of braces, to guarantee the safety of his attire. But the French word for braces was a knock-out. Neither himself nor his friend could think of it, and an Anglo-French turning of the English version met with dismal failure. At last a bright idea smote him. He smiled benignly, and vigorously rubbed the thumbs of both hands up and down over his shoulders and chest. Madame beamed with the light of immediate understanding. “Oui, Monsieur, mais oui ... _oui_!” She disappeared into the back of the store, to return a moment later, bearing in her hand a large green box, labelled distinctly: “Keating’s Powder!” There are few things that will have the least effect on a vigorous young section of “other inhabitants.”