And it was the restaurants where one’s ignorance of French was most keenly felt. All sorts of queer and yet strangely familiar noises emanated from the curtained windows of the _buvettes_ along the streets. Upon investigation it would be discovered that a marine, having lost his “vocabulary,” was flapping his arms and cackling for eggs, earnestly baahing for a lamb stew, or grunting to the best of his ability in a vain endeavor to make _madame_ understand that he wanted roast pork. Imagine his chagrin to find that “pig” and “pork,” as shown on page 16, are “_porc_” in French and are pronounced just the same as in good old American. But the scenes that presented themselves on Sundays or _fête_ days—take the 4th or 14th of July, for example—were such as never had been seen in any French town before. Picture a tiny café, low and whitewashed, ancient, weather-beaten, but immaculately clean, with its heavy ceiling-beams and huge fireplace with brass and copper furnishings. With this background imagine just as many tables as the little place can hold about which are crowded French and American soldiers, sailors, and marines. The table in the corner there, for instance: two _poilus_, two American “jackies,” two marines, and an old Breton peasant farmer with his wife, fat, uncomprehending, and wild-eyed, and his daughter, red-lipped and of fair complexion—these three in from the country for a holiday, the women arrayed in the black cloth and velvet costumes, bright-colored silk aprons, and elaborate linen head-dress which identify them as native of a certain locality. One of the “jackies” sings with gusto service songs of strong and colorful language, singing to himself save for the half-amused and wondering stares of the peasants. The younger of the Frenchmen shows by taking off his coat and unbuttoning his shirt where the shell-fragment penetrated which caused the paralysis in his left arm and sent him home on a month’s furlough, and the Americans eye with interest the actual fragment itself, now doing duty as a watch-charm. But the hubbub and racket cease, and every one rushes to the windows and door as the Marine Band comes swinging along the water-front, playing with catching rhythm “Our Director.” The French burst out in cries of “_Vive l’Amérique!_” The fever spreads, and our soldiers and sailors yell “_Vive la France!_” or as near to it as they can get, as the procession marches by, and the fat old peasant woman says with full approval, “That’s beautiful!” Another letter from the permanent training-camp of the marines, published in _The Recruiters’ Bulletin_, tells of an inspection of the regiment by General Pershing and General Pétain, the French Commander-in-Chief. We read “that the piercing eyes of ‘Black Jack’ rarely miss an unshaven face, badly polished shoes, or the sloppy appearance of anyone” among the soldiers under inspection, and the writer relates: