The children and fowls are doing nicely. They speedily discover what innumerable fowls and children all the world over had discovered before them, namely, that the turtling dove is a wild beast compared with the British warrior and his war-horse, and they victimise the defenceless creatures accordingly. The result is that the Atkinses get only what husks of their rations the children have neglected, and the fowls only allow the hairies what oats they cannot possibly stagger away with. Antonio Giuseppe the donkey was also a war profiteer. Commerce might stagnate, armies clash and struggle, nations bleed to death, he did not care. "_Viva la guerra!_" said Antonio Giuseppe. "As long as there is a British unit handy to dine out with I'm all for it." These sentiments, though deplorable, were not without reason, for until we came I very much doubt if he had ever had a full meal--a real rib-straining blow-out--in his life. He was a miserable little creature, standing about a yard high by six inches broad. By tucking in his tail he could have passed for a rabbit at any fancy-dress ball. His costume was a patch-work affair of hairy tufts and bare spaces. I think he must have been laid away in a drawer without camphor at one time and been mauled by a moth. A disreputable ragamuffin person was Antonio Giuseppe the donkey, but for all that he had a way with him, and was in his day the Light-weight Champion Diner-out of all Italy--probably of the world. At night he reposed in the kitchen along with Mrs. Refugee, the bambini and fowls. The day he spent in his observation post, lurking behind a screen of mulberries and vines, keeping a watchful eye on the horses. As soon as their nosebags were on he commenced to move stealthily towards the lines, timing himself to arrive just as the nosebags came off and the hay-nets went up. He then glided softly between the horses and helped himself. Being tiny and very discreet he frequently passed unobserved, but should the line-guard spot him he had his plan of action. Oft-times have I seen a perspiring and blasphemous trooper pursuing the winged Antonio Giuseppe round the lines with a stable broom; but when the broom descended Antonio Giuseppe was not there to receive it. He would nip under the breast-rope, slip in under one horse's belly and out between the legs of another, dodging through and round the astounded animals like a half-back through a loose scrum or a greased pig at a fair, snatching a generous contribution from each hay-net as he passed. Under this method Antonio throve and throve; but the tale of splintered brooms grew and grew and the Quartermaster loved me not. Yesterday the General intimated that he'd like to inspect us. Always eager to oblige, we licked, polished, brushed and burnished ourselves, pipeclayed our head-ropes, pomaded our moustaches, powdered our noses and paraded.