Five of the younger men of the Embassy have formed a little luncheon club for the purpose of exchanging news and discussing and studying the military situation. They are Lieut. Boyd of the Cavalry, Lieut. Hunnicutt of the Artillery, Harry Dodge, the Ambassador's private Secretary, Lieut. Donait of the Infantry and Ordnance Departments, and myself. We meet each noon at a little pension near the Embassy and there we argue and debate for an hour or more. These daily conferences give us a much better comprehension of the war as a whole and a more exact knowledge of its important details. We have all been more or less at the front and usually some one of us has just returned with first-hand data as to what is going on at the moment. Whenever any outsider is discovered who has recent war news of value, we invite him to luncheon and proceed to cross-question him in general and in particular. * * * * * _Wednesday, September 23d._ A little sadly I took supper this evening at the Café du Commerce where the members of the atelier used to meet in the days of student life. As I was eating, who should walk in and sit down beside me but my friend Daumal, _sous-massier_ of the atelier when war broke out, whom I had not seen since he departed for the front as a private. He is now Sergeant Daumal of the First Line Regiment, wounded at Longwy and just out of the hospital, homeward bound on a two weeks' convalescent leave. As he described it, "une de ces marmites à 28-centimètres" had exploded a little distance from him. Although he had not been struck by any fragments, the shock had rendered him so thoroughly unconscious that for a day he had been passed over by the ambulance orderlies as dead and had finally been discovered by a burying squad to be not in need of a grave but of a hospital. * * * * * The bombardment of Rheims Cathedral has stirred France to indignation, but apparently not nearly as much as it has stirred the outside world. The capacity of the French for being "stirred to indignation" has lost some of its elasticity by this time. It is an action so vivid, so neat, so concise, that it turns the sympathies of neutrals more than a thousand "routine" accounts of burnings and killings. _They bombarded Rheims Cathedral!_ These four words need no elaboration. I myself find it difficult to keep that neutral equilibrium which is necessary in an Attaché who wishes to observe as much and as correctly as possible. Whitney Warren, the architect, and several Attachés are to be sent to Rheims in a day or two to make an investigation. * * * * * _Sunday, September 27th._ I examine indigent Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians every morning, and during the afternoon take special cases to the police, and write up accounts.