He piloted us into a large room with red tile floor. There was good accommodation for the men, and the kitchen ranges were close by. They had their cooks and rations with them, and as soon as we had chosen their sleeping quarters and had seen that everything was satisfactory we returned for our own dinner. In a commodious room, just off the rotunda, a roaring coal fire was blazing on the hearth. Big easy-chairs had been conveniently placed for us, and Burnham and I fell into them and stretched our tired feet toward the fender upon the rich red Turkish rug. The table was spread close by, and we noticed the fine linen, the sparkling cut glass, crested silver and _Limoge_ china. The scent of delicious French cooking was wafted to us past the heavy silken hangings of the door. Presently our German host appeared once more: "Vat vine vill the zhentlemen have mit zehr dinner?" he enquired politely. Burnham threw himself back into his seat and laughed aloud. "Holy smoke!" he chuckled, "and we are at the war!" "What wines have you?" I enquired tentatively. "Anyzing you wish to name, zir," he responded with a certain show of pride. I thought I would put him to the test. "Bring us a bottle of ’Ayala,’ ’04 vintage," I commanded. "Mit pleasure, zir." And he bowed and retired to get it. Burnham slapped his knee and burst out: "Am I awake or dreaming? We walk four miles through a stark forest on a winter night, enter a deserted hostel, are received by a German spy and fêted like the Lord Mayor. I expect to fall out of the balloon any minute and hit the earth with a nasty bump!" "I’m a little dazed myself," I admitted, "but it’s all a part of the soldier-game. Some other day we’ll find the cards reversed, and have to play it just the same." Our host, however, was not a German, although that was his native tongue. He came from that little-known country of Luxembourg, which, sandwiched in between France and her Teutonic enemy, has still maintained a weak and unavailing neutrality. Being too small and unprotected to resist, the German army marched unmolested across it in the early days of war. "Alvred," who was a French-Swiss, and spoke more languages than I can well remember, waited upon us at table. We were just finishing an excellent five-course dinner with a tiny glass of _coin-treau_, when the sound of a motor-car stopping at the door aroused us from our dream of heavenly isolation. As we stepped into the hall, the door opened, and in walked the colonel, the senior major and the quartermaster, who had followed us from Boulogne by road. "Well, how do you like our new hospital?" the colonel demanded with a satisfied smile. "We love it," Burnham exclaimed. "It is weird, romantic and altogether _comme il faut_." I suggested that a liqueur and a cigar might not be unacceptable after their long drive. The colonel smiled appreciatively as he replied: