Very kind indeed, Herr Bubenpech! But we know what a pretty thing is German vengeance, and it gets home! And after all, life was more easily bearable in Laon than in the country. Friends of ours who lived near the Porte d'Ardon let us have a little apartment in their house. Our windows overlooked the country, and as usual we could watch the bursting of shells, the captive balloons, and the turning beacons. Horse-oil was faithful to our lamps, and we used turf to heat our rooms. I recommend this fuel to those who have a love of dust and smoke. The question of food was hard, but not harder than in Morny. Meat was scarcely to be had. The people dimly remembered the shape of an egg, the colour of butter or oil or grease or milk. Babies I know fed on vegetable-soup alone from six weeks of age. The American Board of Relief distributed provisions similar to those we had enjoyed in Morny--250 grammes of bread a day, a little rice, dry vegetables, from time to time a bit of bacon. Besides, green vegetables were to be had at the greengrocer's. But we were forbidden to buy more than ten kilograms of potatoes a head per month. At Morny the Germans had generously distributed twenty kilograms a head, but half of them were rotten, and then the population had been told that they had received their winter supply. What we appreciated most in the town was the calmness of the nights. Where superior officers are quartered, subalterns are obliged to save appearances and to conduct their drunken revelries in private. We had no more brutal intrusions to fear; we dreaded no perquisitions, as we had lost everything. And the aspect of so many houses close to one another gave us an impression of security, long since forgotten. Yet how sad the town looked! Many houses had been emptied according to the Germans' whims. Furniture, bedding, linen, clothes had been carried away. The officers loaded the women who devoted themselves to soothe the boredom of the war with presents, chosen from among this booty. They adorned their apartments with things they had taken from all quarters of the town, and if they did not get from the houses of the absent what they wanted, they applied to those who were still there. Thus it was that a sergeant and four men once came to the house of the friends who had received us, to fetch away a set of drawing-room furniture. Protestations were of no avail. "I have my orders. Make out an invoice, take it to the _Kommandantur_, and a note of hand will be delivered to you." To any complaint which the wronged owner might make an officer answered: "I have but one word of advice to give you: Keep quiet and hold your tongue."