“The greatest difference between France and America,” continued Captain Jones, “is in the people. In America a man ordinarily takes the initiative in striking up an acquaintance with a woman. He has to speak to her before she’ll speak to him. This would never do in France, where the men are too shy. Then there’s a difference in the way men treat their wives and horses. Americans use whips instead of clubs. And Americans have funny ideas about their homes. Private bedrooms and playrooms are provided for their pets--zebras, lizards and wild cats--and the little fellows are given to understand that they must remain in them and not run all over the house, like one of your cows.” He paused to ask me how the potatoes were acting. I said it was too soon to tell, but I felt a little dizzy in the head. He suggested it were better to go back to our compartment, where there were less things to throw in the event of my reaching the throwing stage. “On the other hand,” I said, “if I am deprived of knives, forks and plates, I will pick on human beings, and I usually aim out the windows.” But he said he was sick of the atmosphere in the diner. We asked for l’addition and argued over who should pay it. I won, and when he had been given his change we returned to our own car, where mademoiselle demonstrated her fear of my expected outbreak by going to sleep. We turned our attention to the scenery, the most striking feature of which was the abundance of boche prisoners at work in the fields. “Lucky stiffs!” said the captain. “The war is over for them if they can just manage not to escape, and I guess there’s no difficulty about that. Better food than the soldiers, a soft job, and a bed to sleep in. And wages besides. Every private in the Fritz army would surrender if the officers hadn’t given them a lot of bunk about the way German prisoners are treated. They make them believe we cut off their feet and ears and give them one peanut and a glass of water every two weeks.” Paris hove into view, and we quarreled about the girl. The fair thing, we decided, would be to turn over her and her baggage to a porter and wish her many happy returns of the day. We were spared this painful duty, however, for when she awoke she treated both of us as strangers. And the gentleman who attended to her baggage was not a porter, but a French aviator, waiting on the station platform for that very purpose. “She’ll tell him,” guessed the captain, “that an American soldier and half Indian tried to flirt with her on the train, but she froze them out.” Captain Jones stuck with me till my exit ticket was procured, a chore that ate up over an hour. Then we climbed into a dreadnought and came to this hotel, where I sat right down and versified as follows: TO AN AMERICAN SOLDIER