Two days later they marched through Château Thierry in similar fashion. Colonel McCoy came to mess with a smile of pride on his face telling us he had encountered an old friend, a regular army officer who had said to him, “What is that outfit that passed here a little while ago? It’s the finest looking lot of infantry I have seen in France.” “That is the 165th Infantry, more widely known to fame as the 69th New York, and I am proud to say that I command it.” I have been playing truant for a few days. I had been suffering with a great sense of fatigue. Nothing particular the matter, but I felt as if I were running on four flat tires and one cylinder. Two of the War Correspondents, Herbert Corey and Lincoln Eyre, came along and insisted on bringing me down to their place in Château Thierry; and General Lenihan brought me in in his car. Corey cooked supper—a regular _cordon bleu_ affair—and Lincoln Eyre gave me a hot bath and, like Kipling’s soldier, “God, I needed it so.” Then they bundled me into Tom Johnson’s bed, and as I dropped asleep I thought, and will continue to think, that they are the finest fellows in the world. They were ordered out next morning and I went with them for a couple of days to Bossuet’s old episcopal city of Meaux, where I had a fine time gossiping with Major Morgan, Bozeman Bulger and Arthur Delaney of the Censor’s Bureau and Ray Callahan, Arthur Ruhl and Herbert Bailey, a delightful young Englishman who writes for the _Daily Mail_. I rejoined the regiment at Saulchery—somebody says that sounds like a name for a decadent cocktail—and found myself housed in a large and pleasant villa, the garden of which looked out upon vineyards and fields down to the banks of the Marne. It was one of the pleasantest places we had been in in France. The weather was perfect, and the men enjoyed the camping out in their shelter tents, especially since the river was handy for a swim. The whole thing made us feel more like campers than soldiers. And by the time we had gotten well rested up and most of the cooties washed off, we had forgotten the hard days that were past and saw only the bright side of life once more. We were there from August 12th to 17th, on which latter date we entrained at Château Thierry to go to our new training area. This was down in the Neufchateau district, and to get to it by the railroad we were using we went south until we got to the vicinity of Langres, where we had spent our last two months before going into the trench sector. Regimental headquarters was at Goncourt and the regiment was accommodated in barracks and billets in that and two close lying villages. The towns had been used for some time by American troops and had unusual facilities for bathing, etc. The warm reception given to us by the townspeople was a tribute to the good conduct of the 23rd Infantry which had been billetted there for a considerable period before occupying the front lines.