To-day was the occasion of the first considerable feast under my régime--a lunch given by the officers of our squadron to some distinguished French visitors. The cook and I held long and anxious consultations and finally turned out a meal on which every one complimented us: excellent hors d'oeuvres, grilled salmon steaks, roast veal, asparagus, and salad. A dry Chablis with the fish and some really good Burgundy with the roast. Not bad for the front, really. I give the cook each night enough money for the next day's marketing. The following evening he tells me the amount of the day's expenses, which sum I divide by the number present, giving each man's share for the day. Very simple. Since I got my new machine I have become a genuine hangar-loafer. It is so delicate and complicated that my unfortunate mechanics have to work practically all the time to keep me going. The only way to get the work done well is to know about it yourself; and so, against my instincts, I have been forced for the first time to study the technical and mechanical side of my bus. Some say, "The pilot should never know too much about his machine--it destroys his dash." Perhaps they are right--certainly a plunge into this maze of technicalities destroys his sleep--there is an unwholesome fascination about it: hundreds of delicate and fragile parts, all synchronized as it were and working together, any one of which, by its defection, can upset or even wreck the whole fabric. A simple motor-failure, even in our own lines and at a good altitude, is no joke in the case of the modern single-seater. Small and enormously heavy for its wing-surface, it first touches ground at too high a speed for anything but the longest and smoothest fields. In pannes of this sort, the pilot usually steps out of the most frightful-looking wreck smiling and quite unhurt; but you can scarcely imagine the chagrin and depression one feels at breaking a fine machine. I did it once, and it made me half sick for a week, though it was not really my fault at all. After lunch, instead of taking a nap as one does when on duty at daybreak, I go to the "bar" to read letters and papers and see friends from the other squadrons. As I go in the door, five friends in flying clothes go out. "See you in two hours," says Lieutenant D----. "Let's have a poker game; I've got a patrol now." "All right," I say, "I'll be here"--though I'm not very keen on French poker, which is somewhat different from ours. The two hours pass in a wink of time as I lie in a steamer-chair, reading and reveling in the warm drowsy May afternoon. A sound of motors, the hollow whistling rush of landing single-seaters, and I glance out of the door. Here they come, lumbering across the field--but only four. I get up hastily and run to where the flight-commander is descending stiffly from his bus. His face is long, as we crowd around. "Where's D----?" I ask anxiously.