Big blue overcoat and breeches red as red, And a queer quaint _kepi_ at an angle on his head; And he sang as he was marching, and in the Tuilleries You could meet him _en permission_ with Margot on his knee. At the little _cafe_ tables by the dusty palms in tubs, In the Garden of the Luxembourg, among the scented shrubs, On the old Boul. Mich. of student days, you saw his red and blue; Did you come to love the _fantassin, le p'tit piou-piou_? He has gone, gone, vanished, like a dream of yesternight; He is out amongst the hedges where the shrapnel smoke is white; And some of him are singing still and some of him are dead, And blood and mud and sweat and smoke have stained his blue and red. He is out amongst the hedges and the ditches in the rain, But, when the _soixante-quinzes_ are hushed, just hark!--the old refrain, "_Si tu veux faire mon bonheur, Marguerite, O Marguerite_," Ringing clear above the rifles and the trampling of the feet! Ah, may _le bon Dieu_ send him back again in blue and red, With his queer quaint _kepi_ at an angle on his head! So the Seine shall laugh again beneath the sunlight's quick caress; So the Meudon woods shall echo once again to "_La Jeunesse_"; And all along the Luxembourg and in the Tuilleries, We shall meet him _en permission_ with Margot on his knee. * * * * * UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER. No. VIII. (_From Richard Dickson, generally known as Cock-eyed Dick, Private in the South Loamshire Light Infantry._) I suppose I ought to beg your Majesty's humble pardon for using a pencil for this letter, but it's a good pencil, and, anyhow, we don't run to ink in the trenches. I don't want to be disrespectful to your Majesty's Highness. Fact is I'm just a bit fond of you; you're doing our chaps such a world of good, keeping our hearts up in a manner of speaking and making us all so angry. When your regiments come out against us, the word goes round, and it's "Steady, boys; remember we're a contemptible little army; let's show 'em a bit of contemptible shooting at 800 yards," or "Fix your contemptible bayonets and go for 'em;" and I warrant there's many a German chap out of the fighting line for good and all just on account of that nasty word.