"Yah; I will make arrangements." That was how I came to get Private Cotton as my orderly. Cotton was a fine lad; a well-educated, superior type of fellow, and we became very much attached to each other during those long, dreary days. He could speak French, and although he could speak no German, he possessed that wonderful faculty peculiar to the private soldier, of understanding and making himself understood in a language he did not know. He had been a civil servant in the War Office; but in the early part of the war had volunteered his services with the colours, and fought night and day in the trenches for a shilling a day; while the young man who took his place in the War Office drew one and sixpence an hour overtime after 4 o'clock. Yet Cotton never complained. But his duty was the other man's opportunity. As I write these lines Cotton is still a prisoner. I wonder if the other man is still drawing overtime, and wearing a war-service badge? Now Cotton was a gentleman both by birth and education; but he was a private soldier, and seemed to make a hobby of being one. He was a private, and I was a captain, and he insisted on that gulf being maintained. Whenever he bade me good-night, after he had laid me in my bed and made me some cocoa--generally from his own supplies, for my parcels went astray--I could always hear him click his heels, and I knew he had saluted. The second day after I had arrived at Osnabruck, he took me for exercise up and down the yard outside the canteen. This was my first appearance, and I was evidently an object of some curiosity, for wind had got round the camp that a blind prisoner had been brought in. As the French officers passed me, I used to hear them say: "Good morning, Capitaine," or "Bon jour, mon camarade." The English officers were splendid and always anxious to help me, and many a welcome supper of cocoa and cake I used to have in their rooms before going to bed. I am afraid, though, that I used to make rather a big meal of it, as for the first two weeks I had to exist on the German rations. When I took my first walk in the yard the canteen manager, his wife, and daughter were evidently watching out for me; for by and by, as a sign of their good-will, the daughter came running out after me with a present. It was an egg! Cotton and I had a serious talk about this egg. He thought I should save it, and have half for supper and half for breakfast; but I settled the matter by eating it at once. I think I have forgotten to mention that we were allowed to buy for half a mark, a loaf of bread every five days. I had no idea how far a loaf would go; I had never before given it a thought. But Cotton had it down to a science; and worked it out that two small slices for breakfast, and the same for supper would carry me through, and he kept me to it. "Cotton," I would say, after I had breakfasted on the two slices, "I could eat another slice." "Better not, sir." "Why not, Cotton? It's my loaf."