Craig and I made good use of the waiting period. We were put to work on the reports submitted at regular intervals by our officers in the field. These reports contained information concerning art repositories. It was our job to keep the card file on them up to date; to make a card for each new one; to sort out and place in a separate file those which had become obsolete; to check duplications. Each card bore the name of the place, a brief description of the contents, and a map reference consisting of two co-ordinates. In Germany there was much duplication in the names of small towns and villages, so these map references were of great importance. There was also a file on outstanding works of art which were known to have been carried off by the Germans or hidden away for safekeeping, but the whereabouts of which were as yet unknown—such things, for example, as the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, the Michelangelo _Madonna and Child_ from Bruges, the Ghent altarpiece, the treasure from the Cathedral of Metz, the stained glass from Strasbourg Cathedral, and the Veit Stoss altarpiece. The list read like an Almanach de Gotha of the art world. So far as our creature comforts were concerned, they suffered a great decline when we moved out to Versailles. Our lodging there was a barren, four-story house at No. 1 Rue Berthier. Craig had a room on the ground floor, while I shared one under the eaves with Charlie Kuhn. Judging from the signs still tacked up in various parts of the house, it had been used as a German billet during the occupation; and judging by its meager comforts, only the humblest ranks had been quartered there. No spruce Prussian would have put up with such austerity. A couple of British soldiers also were living there. They were batmen for two officers quartered in a near-by hotel and, for a hundred francs a week, they agreed to do for us as well. They brought us hot water in the morning, polished our shoes each day and pressed our uniforms. Outwardly our life was rather magnificent, for we usually had our meals at the Trianon Palace Hotel just inside the park grounds. It was a pleasant walk from the Rue Berthier, and an even pleasanter one from the office, involving a short cut behind the main palace and across the lovely gardens. On the whole the gardens had been well kept up and a stroll about the terraces or through the long _allées_ was something to look forward to when the weather was fine. Craig and I got into the habit of retiring to a quiet corner of the gardens after work with our German books. There we would quiz each other for an hour or two a day. We made occasional trips into Paris but, more often than not, we followed a routine in which the bright lights—what few there were—played little part.