MY DEAR CHARLES,--No "Tourists' Guide to Northern France" would be complete without some mention of the picturesque town of A., a point at which even the most progressive traveller is likely to say that he's had a very pleasant journey so far, but now thinks of turning back. It boasts a small but exceedingly well-ventilated cathedral, many an eligible residence to let, and the relics of what was once a busy factory, on the few remaining bricks of which you are particularly requested to "afficher" no "affiches." It is approached by a railway, prettily overgrown with tall grasses and wild-flowers, and never made hideous these days by the presence of hustling, smoky trains. Entering daintily from the back, the tourist will soon find himself in its main street, devoid of ladies out shopping, but not without its curious collection of exuberant drain-pipes and recumbent lamp-posts. It lies, pleasantly dishevelled, in the sun, having the appearance of the bed of a restless sleeper who has shifted about somewhat in the night and made many abortive efforts to get up in the morning. Its streets are decorated with a series of dew ponds, dotted about with no apparent regard to the convenience of the traffic, and you may while away many an idle hour trying to discover where the street ends and the houses begin. You will not be interrupted if you detach, for your collection of curios, a yard or so of the dislodged statue of the leading municipal genius, and even the old man at the barrier of the eastern gate will only attempt to deter you by friendly advice if you persist in ignoring the notice, "This Road is Unfit for Vehicular Traffic." I am told that discipline is automatic at this point; it requires no browbeating military policemen to control the traffic here. The town of A. has given up work. It has also given up trying to look smart. It still spreads itself over many acres and it has a population of twenty-five, not including the Town Major. Town Majors, of the more permanent sort, are a race apart. Being older men, who have done their turn in the trenches and are now marked down for the less actively quarrelsome life, they nevertheless prefer to live in this sort of place. When a man gets to their age he has apparently grown too fond of his old friends, the shells, to be parted from them altogether till he absolutely must; also he likes a row of houses to himself to live in. A street cannot be so quickly demolished as to give him no time to select another one, and business can always be carried on at the one end while structural alterations are taking place at the other. This fluctuation of town property is a thing to be reckoned with in his life; and so on his office wall you will find a list of billets occupied by units, and where you see a blue mark you'll know the unit has gone, and where you see a red mark, you'll know the billet has.