A mule's a mule, however, wherever you meet him--these are just the same "ornery" brutes we have at home. Their effect on the explosive southern French temperament is sometimes ludicrous. I stopped the other day to ask the way of a mule-skinner who was limping dejectedly ahead of his charge--the rest of the train was far ahead. After putting me on the road, he leaned wearily against a tree and explained that in all the world there was probably not another mule like his. It had kicked him yesterday, it had bitten him severely this morning, and just now, while he adjusted the pack, it had kicked him on the hip, so that in all likelihood he would limp for life. While he talked, the mule sidled over, with drooping eyelids and sagging ears, and planted one foot firmly on the unfortunate Frenchman's toes. The whole thing seemed to have been done by accident--I could almost see the dotted line of innocence running from the mule's sleepy eye off into space. Without a word, the man set his shoulder against the mule, forced its weight off his foot, and tenderly inspected the injured part. Then, hands on hips, he regarded the mule with a long stare of dramatic contempt. "Wouldst thou kill me, sacré espèce of a camel?" he said at last; "well, death would be better than this. Come, here I am!" The day before yesterday, when I was out at one of our posts on the front, an Austrian 88 mm. shell fell in a crowd of mules and their drivers. Fortunately no one was hurt (by one of the freaks of shells), but three mules were killed by the splinters. That night, with some misgivings, I tried a steak from the hind-quarter of a five-year-old mule. _It was bully._ When you come to think of it, a mule is just as good food as a steer. A week ago I was waiting at a front post for some wounded, when a mule train came by, packed with the huge winged aerial torpedoes so much in vogue just now. Each mule carried four of these truly formidable things. As the last mule passed, he slipped on the muddy slope, his feet flew out, and down he came with a whack, torpedoes and all. You ought to have seen us scatter,--officers, men, and mule-drivers,--like fragments of a bursting shell. As the mule showed signs of struggling, we had to rush back and gingerly remove the load before helping him up.