They invited him over to their table. There was a moist look about his eyes and a thickness to his voice that denoted alcohol. "You mustn't mind me. I'm forgetting.... I've been doing it for a week. This is the first leave I've had in eighteen months. You Canadians?" "No. Ambulance service; Americans." "New at the game then. You're lucky.... Before I left the front I saw a man tuck a hand-grenade under the pillow of a poor devil of a German prisoner. The prisoner said, 'Thank you.' The grenade blew him to hell! God! Know anywhere you can get whisky in this bloody town?" "We'll have to hurry; it's near closing-time." "Right-o." They started off, Randolph and the girl talking intimately, their heads close together, Martin supporting the Englishman. "I need a bit o' whisky to put me on my pins." They tumbled into the seats round a table at an American bar. The Englishman felt in his pocket. "Oh, I say," he cried, "I've got a ticket to the theatre. It's a box.... We can all get in. Come along; let's hurry." They walked a long while, blundering through the dark streets, and at last stopped at a blue-lighted door. "Here it is; push in." "But there are two gentlemen and a lady already in the box, meester." "No matter, there'll be room." The Englishman waved the ticket in the air. The little round man with a round red face who was taking the tickets stuttered in bad English and then dropped into French. Meanwhile, the whole party had filed in, leaving the Englishman, who kept waving the ticket in the little man's face. Two gendarmes, the theatre guards, came up menacingly; the Englishman's face wreathed itself in smiles; he linked an arm in each of the gendarmes', and pushed them towards the bar. "Come drink to the Entente Cordiale.... Vive la France!" In the box were two Australians and a woman who leaned her head on the chest of one and then the other alternately, laughing so that you could see the gold caps in her black teeth. They were annoyed at the intrusion that packed the box insupportably tight, so that the woman had to sit on the men's laps, but the air soon cleared in laughter that caused people in the orchestra to stare angrily at the box full of noisy men in khaki. At last the Englishman came, squeezing himself in with a finger mysteriously on his lips. He plucked at Martin's arm, a serious set look coming suddenly over his grey eyes. "It was like this"--his breath laden with whisky was like a halo round Martin's head--"the Hun was a nice little chap, couldn't 'a' been more than eighteen; had a shoulder broken and he thought that my pal was fixing the pillow. He said 'Thank you' with a funny German accent.... Mind you, he said 'Thank you'; that's what hurt. And the man laughed. God damn him, he laughed when the poor devil said 'Thank you.' And the grenade blew him to hell."