My Christmas was spent in Paris with my _marraine_. There was snow on the ground. On Christmas Eve I went to the great Paris Grand Opera House. It is a monument to the artistic appreciation of the French public, and as a piece of architecture it is a masterpiece. As you ascend its grand stairway and pass through the foyer and grand balconies into the gorgeous theater, you feel the power of the master designers and builders and artists who contributed to its conception. The opera was _Faust_. The French singers are no better musically but they are splendid actors, which is not the case in American opera. The love scene in _Faust_ was done with the taste of Sothern’s and Marlowe’s _Romeo and Juliet_. The _Faust_ ballet was splendid. Oh, how I enjoyed that evening. On Christmas day I went twice to see David Reed, whom I liked so well in the Ambulance Unit, and who has been sick in the hospital with grip and a broken arm. He is one of those the war cannot soil. My _marraine’s_ grandchildren gave me a big box of candied fruit, which I found in my shoes on Christmas morning. I gave the little girl a doll, dressed in “Old Glory,” and the boy an American pocket flashlight. The train left at eight on Christmas evening. My four comrades and I met in our reserved compartment and had a very pleasant journey back to Cazaux, arriving at ten-thirty in the morning. We all had a good time telling of our merry Christmas. The cakes and chocolate which my _marraine_ gave me helped to fill five empty stomachs at five in the morning. My worst experience in the air was awaiting me. We flew in the afternoon. I took a machine and a parachute and climbed to 1,800 meters. We were only supposed to climb to 1,400, but I disobeyed and it probably saved my life. I threw out the parachute and took a couple of turns at it. After diving at the thing and mounting again, I started into a “roundversment” with my eyes on the parachute. Unconsciously, I went into a loop and stopped in the upside-down position, where I hung by my belt. I cut the motor, and grabbed a strut to hold myself in my seat. The machine fell in its upside-down position till it gained terrific speed, then it slowly turned over into a nose dive, and I came out in a tight spiral which slowly widened into a circle at _ligne de vol_, but the controls were almost useless, and it took all my strength to keep from diving into the ground. You know what skidding is, so you can imagine what loss of control in an automobile going at high speed would be, but you cannot imagine what loss of control of an aeroplane is any more than a lumberjack can imagine a million dollars.