A few days ago the chief of an aeroplane section at the front felt a premonition of death. He was known to all the army for his utterly reckless daring. He liked to boast of the number of men who had been killed out of his section. He was always the first to get away on a bombing expedition and the last to return. He had received at least one decoration—accompanied by a reprimand—for flying over the German lines in order to bring down a _Fokker_. “I have written my letters,” he said to his lieutenant. “When you hear of my death, send them on.” The lieutenant laughed at him. That sector of the line was quiet, he pointed out. No German machine had been in the air for days. He might have been justified in his premonition, the lieutenant said, on any day of three months past. But now he was in not so much danger as he might be in Paris from the taxicabs. That day a general visited the headquarters and the chief went up in a new machine to demonstrate it. Something broke when he was three thousand feet high and the machine fell sidewise like a stone. It is possible, say the soldiers, to keep bad fortune from following an omen by the use of the proper talisman. The rabbit’s foot is unknown, but it is said that a gold coin has much the same effect—why, no one seems to know. A rabbit’s foot, of course, must be from the left hind leg, otherwise it is good for nothing, and according to a _poilu_ the efficacy of the gold piece depends upon whether or no it puts the man into touch with his “star.” It is said in the New York _Sun_: Gold coins are a mascot in the front lines, a superstition not difficult to explain. It was at first believed that wounded men on whom some gold was found would be better looked after by those who found them, and by degrees the belief grew up, especially among artillery, that a gold coin was a talisman against being mutilated if they were taken prisoners, whether wounded or not. The Government’s appeals to have gold sent to the Bank of France and not to let it fall into enemy hands in case of capture has since reduced the amount of gold at the front, but many keep some coins as a charm. Many men sew coins touching one another in such a way as to make a shield over the heart. “Every man has his own particular star,” a Lyons farm hand said to Apollinaire, “but he must know it. A gold coin is the only means to put you in communication with your star, so that its protecting virtue can be exercised. I have a piece of gold and so am easy in my mind I shall never be touched.” As a matter of fact he was seriously wounded later. Perhaps he lost his gold-piece!