So most of the men spread their blankets in the straw and go to bed at six o’clock—a good habit in the minds of old-fashioned folks. The squad overhead have another good old-fashioned habit. From the stable below I can hear them say their beads in common before settling down to sleep. “Father” Pat Heaney of Company D got them into the way of it on the boat. Good lads! In comparison with them my fittings are palatial. I have a large square low-ceilinged room with stone floor, and French windows with big wooden shutters to enclose the light. The walls are concealed by the big presses or _Armoires_ so dear to the housewives of Lorraine. The one old lady who occupies this house has lived here for all of her 70 years (a German officer occupied the high canopied bed in 1870) and she has never let any single possession she ever had get away from her. They are all in the _Armoires_, old hats, bits of silk, newspapers—everything. She is very pious and very pleased to have M. l’Aumonier, but she wouldn’t give me a bit of shelf room or a quarter inch of candle or a handful of _petit bois_ to start a fire in the wretched fireplace, without cash down. “Monsieur is a Curé.” “Yes, Madame.” My landlady has been quizzing me about the Regiment, my parish and myself. She doesn’t understand this volunteer business. If we didn’t have to come, why are we here? is her matter of fact attitude. She was evidently not satisfied with what she could learn from me herself, so one day she called to her aid a crony of hers, a woman of 50 with a fighting face and straggly hair whom I had dubbed “the sthreeler,” because no English word described her so adequately. I had already heard the Sthreeler’s opinion of the women in Paris—all of them. It would have done the hussies good to hear what she thought of them. Now she turned her interrogatory sword point at me; no parrying about her methods—just slash and slash again. “Monsieur has three vicaires.” “Yes, Madame.” “Then why has M. l’Aumonier come over here? Why not send one of the Vicaires and stay at home in his parish?” “But none of the vicaires was aumonier of the Regiment; but myself, M. le Curé. “Oh, perhaps the Germans destroyed your parish as they did that of our present curé.” “No, the Germans have not got to New York yet so my parish is still safe.” “Ah, then, I have it. No doubt the Government pays you more as aumonier than the church does as curé.” This was said with such an evident desire to justify her good opinion of me as a rational being in spite of apparent foolishness, that I said: “That is precisely the reason”; and we turned with zest to the unfailing topic of the Parisiennes with their jewels and paint and high heels. Not having her courage, I did not venture to ask the sthreeler if she did not really envy them.