There were several interruptions during dinner that evening. Once a wayfaring Alpino, whose lantern had gone out, and who had turned in to the nearest house to relight it, appeared at the door. That he stumbled upon his Colonel’s mess did not appear to disturb him a whit more than it did the Colonel, who gave the smiling chap a box of matches and sent him on his way with a cheery “_a rivederci_.” A little later the door was opened in response to a timid knock, to reveal a little old lady who wanted to borrow a tin of condensed milk and five eggs. Her son was coming home on leave on the morrow, she said, and she was going to make a _pannello_ for his dinner. The little village shop was out of eggs and milk for the moment, and as the _Colonello’s_ cook had refused to lend them to her, she had come straight to the _Colonello_ himself. She had heard he was very kind. “See that she has all she wants; fill up her basket,” was the order sent out to the cook. And then, as the grateful little old dame backed, bowing, out of the door: “Feed him up well, _madre_; a man has to have something under his belt to fight in these mountains, doesn’t he?” “Brother Sante usually looks after callers of this kind for me,” said my host with a laugh; “but Sante is away for a day or two, and I have no buffer. You will observe, by the way, that I am not quite at one with my distinguished grandfather in the matter of rations. What was it he said to the men who had assembled to follow him in his flight after the unsuccessful fight for the Roman Republic? ‘I offer neither pay, quarters nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst forced marches, battle, and death.’ Well, I too have plenty of fighting to offer my men, but no more of the other ‘inducements’ than I can possibly help. And when they have to die, I like to feel that it’s on a full stomach. “Perhaps you heard,” he went on, “what a stir it made up here when I first asked for marmalade for my men. They started out by laughing at me. ‘Of course,’ they said, ‘we know that your mother is English; but that is no reason why, much as _you_ may crave it, your _men_ should need marmalade!’ Then they said that _marmellata_ would cost too much, and finally tried to prove that it would be bad for the men’s health. But I had seen what troops had done in South Africa on a generous marmalade allowance; also what they were doing in France. So I stuck to it, and--well, we took the Marmolada on _marmellata_, and a good many Austrians besides.” We were still laughing over the little joke when the door opened, and the telephone operator from the room across the hall entered to report in a low voice some news that had just reached him. The Colonel’s face changed from gay to grave in an instant; but it was with voice and manner of quiet restraint that he asked a couple of quick questions and then gave a brief order, evidently to be transmitted back whence the news had come.