There was one amusing episode. These celebrations are always a surprise to the greater part of the community, and, in a little place like this, it is only by accident that anyone sees the ceremony. The children are always at school, and the rest of the world is at work, so, unless the music attracts someone, there are few spectators. On the day of the prise d'armes three old peasants happened to be in a field on the other side of the route nationale, which skirts the big plain on the plateau. They heard the music, dropped their work and ran across the road to gape. They were all men on towards eighty--too old to have ever done their military service. Evidently no one had ever told them that all Frenchmen were expected to uncover when the flag went by. Poor things, they should have known! But they didn't, and you should have seen a colonel ride down on them. I thought he was going to cut the woollen caps off their heads with his sabre, at the risk of decapitating them. But I loved what he said to them. "Don't you know enough to uncover before the flag for which your fellow citizens are dying every day?" Isn't that nice? I loved the democratic "fellow citizens"--so pat and oratorically French. I flung the Stars and Stripes to the French breezes on the 7th in honor of the rupture. It was the first time the flag has been unfurled since Captain Simpson ordered the corporal to take it down two years ago the third of last September. I had a queer sensation as I saw it flying over the gate again, and thought of all that had happened since the little corporal of the King's Own Yorks took it down,--and the Germans still only forty-two miles away. XXXV February 26, 1917 What do you suppose I have done since I last wrote to you? I have actually been to the theatre for the first time in four years. Would you ever have believed that I could keep out of the theatre such a long time as that? Still, I suppose going to the theatre--to a sort of variety show--seems to you, who probably continue to go once or twice a week, a tame experience. Well, you can go to the opera, which I can't do if I like, but you can't see the heroes of Verdun not only applauding a show, but giving it, and that is what I have been doing not only once but twice since I wrote you. I am sure that I have told you that our ambulance is in the salle de récréation of the commune, which is a small rectangular room with a stage across one end. It is the only thing approaching a theatre which the commune boasts. It is well lighted, with big windows in the sides, and a top-light over the stage. It is almost new, and the walls and pointed ceiling are veneered with some Canadian wood, which looks like bird's-eye maple, but isn't. It is in that hall that the matinées, which are given every other Sunday afternoon, take place. They are directed by a lieutenant-colonel, who goes into it with great enthusiasm, and really gets up a first-class programme.