We are already installed, rifles racked along the sides of the barn, when the battalion adjutant thrusts his face and pipe around our door. I shall not attempt to set down the language that ensued; but, briefly, we had to un-install ourselves. Farewell, thou golden-jellied brawn, farewell! We are set down for duty in the vicinity of a sawmill. Logs of timber of equal lengths, planks already sawn, are piled outside the sheds. We have to set a sentry, bayonet fixed, to help the cooks preserve the timber from the depredations of those frail mortals who might be tempted to help themselves and merrily burn the mill's stock. A temptation not difficult to understand! "And now," says Porchon to me, "we have got to fit ourselves out again! There must surely be some precious things about here; but perhaps in an hour or so they will carry them off." There ensues the usual chase for rations. For that business one should possess the scent of a hound to worry out obscure corners; and diplomacy, to reach the hearts of these peasants and overcome their hesitation--for they always hesitate, never freely parting with whatever they may have for sale, hoping that another purchaser may come along and offer more than you are offering. A freemasonry which tends to mutual benefit exists among campaigning comrades: "Look here! Down that lane, the third house to the left, the one with the green shutters, there is an old woman who sells eggs...." Let us go and investigate! The old woman, horrible to look upon, dry as the seared vine, toothless, filthy, untidy strands of grey hair hanging about her face, raises her arm to the sky and calls upon the Holy Virgin to witness that she has nothing, nothing at all.... We mention a price, a ridiculous, extortionate figure. It is plain magic; the arm drops instantly; her voice descends an octave; and then the old miser glides along a passage-way thick with fowl-droppings, bends her body to pass through a low doorway, emerges with caution, carrying something in her apron. And when she approaches again, half a dozen eggs are clutched in her claw-like hands--they are white as milk in contrast with her dirty, lined palms. They are still warm when she drops them into our pockets. In a lowered voice, with lips stiffly drawn over her bare gums, she says: "Do not tell anyone about it. Perhaps I shall have some more for you when my hens have laid. But don't breathe a word about it. Mind, not a word!" Porchon has discovered some plum jam. Jam?--it is rather a compound of quinces scarcely sweetened. "I paid seven sous a quarter for this mixture," he informs me. "The pigs who sold it to me had two enormous copper cans full of it on their counter, and they emptied them in half an hour at the same price."