At the hospital, the night after the sortie I have just been telling you of, we worked with our wounded until nearly morning. Dr. Swinburne, I think, did not go to bed at all. And right here I ought to introduce you more particularly to the old doctor. Take the portrait of General Grant, run a good many streaks of gray through his hair and beard, a few more lines on his forehead and crows' feet around his eyes, and you have an idea of the doctor's looks. He is a man of great energy and few words--a surgical genius and a great lover of horses. He could or would explain nothing. At last we got to calling him "Old Compound Fracture," for he would say, when we were starting for a fight likely to be serious, "Boys, don't mind those slightly wounded fellows--let the Frenchmen pick them up: just bring me along the compound fractures." These latter were his hobby. He fairly doted on a man whom ordinary surgeons would have given up in despair; and I believe he was the happiest man in Paris when the first patient who had his leg shattered in a half dozen places began hobbling about the camp on crutches. The soldiers got to hear of him at last. More than one poor fellow lying on the field grievously wounded swore he would be taken to no place but to the American hospital. Our next important sortie was at Champigny. That was the occasion when Ducrot was surely going to push through the German lines. In his proclamation he had announced that he would re-enter Paris victorious or dead. Of course he did not keep his promise. We were all to rendezvous at the Champs de Mars that morning at four o'clock. About three of the same morning Mont Valérien opened fire, and then Issy, then Vanves, then Mont Rouge, and so the flash and roar of cannon went round the whole city. That was our reveille. It was cold, very cold, that morning, and we waited at the rendezvous a long time in company with the French, Italian, Swiss and other ambulance corps. The great Doctor Ricord was there, and some of us heard then for the first time that he is an American from Baltimore. Chenu, Nellaton and several other famous surgeons were also there, shivering with us as we waited and waited for the push through the lines, which never came. Well, when at last the fight did occur, it made plenty of work for our wagons. For the next two days they were constantly going to and fro between the field and our hospital. Everywhere we went along the lines now we were recognized and made way for. One night, as one of our wagons was trying to cross the field, it was halted with the question, "What ambulance is that?" "Is it necessary to ask?" shouted a French soldier out of the darkness. "It is the Americans', of course: they are everywhere."