French, Belgian, English; yes, at times Italian, Russian, Serbian and even Japanese officers of high rank and ladies whose fame in charitable and Red Cross work is international, dine in this unique café. The little bar is in the dining room, and above its mahogany top you may see the head and shoulders of the proprietor’s youthful daughter—a girl of such rare and artistic southern beauty that men and women too stare in admiring wonder. But the military and the nobility are not the only guests. The crowded café distils a broad Bohemianism which startles one. At one table we see two dark-eyed "ladies-of-the-street" boldly ogling a couple of young subalterns in khaki who have just arrived from England. Brushing shoulders with the finest in the land the demimondaine quaffs her green liqueur, powders her nose and dabs again the painted cheek that riots in its bloom. At another table two French generals, oblivious to the hum about them, are planning schemes of war too deep for thoughts of giddy girls who seek to catch their eye. Above the glass partition curls the smoke of cigarettes, and the laughing voices of Englishwomen tell us who are there. Upon the leather-cushioned bench which skirts the wall, a handsome Belgian, well past middle age, rests his chin upon the shoulder of a beautiful young Russian girl, and gently puts his arm about her waist. And as we look with passing interest at the pair, she takes the lit cigar from her companion’s lips and places it between her own, blowing the clouds of smoke into his face. Every table but one is filled. The blended murmur of a dozen different tongues, the popping of champagne corks, the rippling laughter of the women, all combine in one strange sound in stranger France. One thing only reminds us of the outer world. The mani-coloured uniforms of soldiers of the several nations represented tell us all too truly that only a few miles away is the great grim battlefield and—death. At 3 p.m. we started once more on the road and climbed the steep hill to that broad highway which leads to Calais. But now we reached another barricade, and an unexpected obstacle arose. The sentry regretted with a shrug of the shoulders and both uplifted hands, but the road was under repairs, and none might pass that way. Jack came to the rescue and appealed to him in his inimitable French. _Monsieur le Colonel_ with him was urgently needed at the front. The shortest and quickest route was the only one for such an important man—great speed was essential to the completion of pressing duties. We could see the sentry wavering. Jack repeated: "_Mon Colonel est bien pressé—bien pressé!_" The sentry capitulated—of course if the _Colonel_ was _pressé_, there was nothing else for it. He let us pass. As we whirled along the road, Jack laughed in that boyish manner of his and exclaimed: