"Yes, I am the 'barbarian,'" he laughed modestly. He wears the Iron Cross of the first and second class, and, although still only a Lieutenant, commands two batteries. A most picturesque but paradoxical "barbarian," with a soft-spoken lisp, mild blue eyes, boyish face in spite of a tawny-reddish full beard of long standing, and slightly bowed legs, it required a most rigorous reportorial inquisition as practiced on millionaires and politicians at home to extract these details from the modest "friend of the Rheims Cathedral": "The French observer on the cathedral was first noticed on Sept. 13. After that the French artillery fire became uncomfortably accurate. Eighty shells fell here in one day alone--killing only one cow," he added, with a plaintive note of reminiscence. He pointed to three big holes in the ground close by and all within a circle of ten yards' radius, where three French shells had dropped in quick succession, as further evidence of how well they had got the range. "The fellow continued 'on the job' quite shamelessly until the 18th," he went on, "when I aimed two shots at the cathedral, and only two. No more were needed to dislodge him. One from a 15-centimeter howitzer struck the top of the 'observation tower,' the other, from a 21-centimeter mortar, hit the roof and set it on fire. I used both howitzers and mortars so as to let the French know that we could shoot well with both kinds. I wanted to dislodge the observer with the least possible damage to the fine old cathedral, and the result shows that it is possible to shoot just as accurately with heavy artillery as with field artillery. The French also had a battery planted about 100 yards from the cathedral. It isn't there any more," he added laconically. A few turns of the screw brought a row of trees marking a boulevard into the field of vision. "There is a French battery there at the present time," he said. "How do you know?" For I saw trees but no guns. "Aeroplanes," "the friend of the Cathedral" explained. Another turn of the screw brought a church steeple into view. "The French are now using this church steeple for observation purposes," the battery commander said. "The observer is reported to me every morning. He is getting to be too shameless. I shall take a shot at that steeple this afternoon in all probability. And then I suppose they will again call us barbarians. I saw the fellow myself this morning. He sits in that little arched window there." I saw the window quite distinctly, and only regret that the culprit had climbed down for the luncheon intermission, which is religiously kept by both the French and German artillery.