As the dining room beyond and, no doubt, the hotel itself, was crowded with officers, there was a manifest intention on the young woman’s part to treat me as if I did not exist. I, therefore, inquired in my best manner if I could leave my things in the office and have déjeûner. She nodded and I went into a long, low, crowded dining room, which, had it not been for the uniforms, would have looked exactly like a Western eating shed. There was a seat vacant at one of the longer tables, to which I made my way unescorted. The entire company was waited on by two boys of about 16. They looked distracted. The tablecloth was soiled, but I was prepared to accept trifling variations upon ordinary standards with equanimity. I secured the attention of one of the boys, and, being left to my own devices for some time, my eyes, after wandering up and down the room, fell once more upon the table. I made another discovery. It was covered with flies. Large, torpid, viscous flies. I had a vision of these flies rising in a dark cloud from the battlefields of Verdun and traveling to Bar-le-Duc on top of the hundreds of covered army wagons that go back and forth daily. While I was digesting this horrid fact a plate of potatoes swimming in oil was placed before me. I waved it away. Oil to me is more abhorrent than milk. It was succeeded by a dish of tripe. I covered my eyes and shuddered. C’est la guerre. Oh, yes. But—Mon Dieu! I managed to make a spare meal of mutton that tasted as if killed an hour before, and dry potatoes, but dared not touch the water, and rose from that table in the least possible time, determined to accomplish the object of my visit during the afternoon and return to Paris that night. I did not even want to look at the upper rooms. Turpentine I felt would avail not in this hotel, which looked a thousand years old and resurrected from the dead. I returned to the office. There was now an older woman there, and, chastened by years and the rivalry of youth, she answered my questions amiably. No, there was not a conveyance of any sort to be had in the city. How, then, was I to find the Commissaire of Police and have my carnet rouge viséd, how visit the hospitals, which were out of town? She could not say. Then I bethought me once more of the letter given me by the War Office. I would go straight to military headquarters and ask them for an automobile. She vaguely directed me, and once more I started forth, leaving my things in her charge. The woman had told me to turn to the right. As I was leaving the girl called out that I must turn to the left. I revolved with that helpless feeling one has occasionally in the war zone, and they both began to talk at once, as is the habit of French people of that class when giving advice. If they had been ten they would all have talked at once and advised me differently.