Damp, cold night had fallen on Châlons, but the canteen was warm and cheery, and the men who knew little of warmth and cheer were sitting about in a moment’s comfort, and there came to mind a canteen I know (oh, far away!) which is presided over by a lady with a mustache like a majordomo, and there are no night hours in her canteen. She rings an inexorable bell at the chaste hour of 9.30, and, rainy or dry, warm or cold, out they go, the _poilus_. Some one with a compassionate heart remarked to one of the men on a pouring night, as the bell was ringing, “I am sorry you must go.” He answered, with a glance at the ringer and a twist of _his_ mustache: “It’s well to choose them that way. It quiets us.” And he went off singing, “_Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée_.” It was too funny.... _Friday, October 19th._ A tightening of the heart at leaving that flooding hall—going out again to pick up the personal life, inconsequential as it now seems. One is hypnotized by the stream of humanity, drawn into its vortex, finally rushing along with it, who knows whence or whither. I jerked myself back by saying, “This is not my bit,” and, “Each one to his own.” There are many ways of helping win the war. I saw for a moment General Goïgoux, just back from his _permission_, so solicitous for the welfare of his men, so pleased with the results of the canteen, smiling as he said to me: “_Eh bien, Madame, cela a fait des progrès depuis votre dernière visite._” There is a quite wonderful entente, and appreciation, on both sides in Châlons. I went back into the canteen, and found some _poilus_ in fits of laughter over a black cat. Now what a black cat evokes in the mind of the _poilu_ I can only suspect; I don’t quite know. Anyway, it’s something that “makes to laugh”; and our black cat, strayed in weeks ago from who knows where, and perched near a devoted lady of unmistakable respectability, lately arrived to help “save France,” furthermore enveloped in a gray sweater (it’s cold and draughty where she sits behind the small aperture selling tickets for coffee, chocolate, and _repas complets_), and not in her nature playful, seems somehow suggestive to the _poilu_. Even when it perches on the counter by the coffee-jugs it’s the same. We don’t like to get rid of it; it’s supposed to bring good luck. However, enough, or perhaps too little, about the black cat. There is a _surveillant_ supposed to keep order. He is rarely needed, and if he does say anything, he gets an “_Embusqué!_” thrown at him, between the eyes. It’s not the day of the civilian employee. This one spends a good deal of time eating and not paying, and nobody loves him. There is a favorite story of the _poilu_ saluting a common or garden variety of policeman, thinking he was a corporal; and when telling of his mistake afterward he called it “_le plus malheureux jour de mavie_.”