of sorts came aboard to announce this to Fourgues. He was well received: “I am loaded to the hatches with cotton and I won’t unload a single bale. Even if you bring me a written order, I forbid my men to touch it without the order of my owner. I can’t keep you from unloading cotton, but you will have to provide the men.” So a gang from land came and cleared half the hold. I wonder what in the world they did with it! We stowed the stuff as well as we could. To be sure, several chairs and gladstone bags went overboard, but nobody fished them up again. The Boches asked--but they did not ask Fourgues--to be given some bales of cotton for mattresses. So during the entire voyage they slept like pigs in clover while we continued to enjoy the Company’s usual board and lodging. On the whole, we got on fairly well with the Huns. They tried to swank at the first meal. One of them, a genuine old one, had the face to go on the bridge afterwards and tell Fourgues that there wasn’t anything to eat, that Germans had to have beer instead of water, and that all these from Hamburg and Leipzig and elsewhere were gentleman of rank who had helped France conquer Morocco and had colonized there because France lacked the ability to do so and that they intended to be treated with respect. It was worth paying for a seat to see Fourgues during this little address. He put his hands in his pockets in order not to pitch the man of beer overboard. When the other had finished, Fourgues answered in his little calm voice, the one he uses, you know, when he is in such a rage that he is absolutely expressionless: “The first person, you or another, who makes any complaint I shall put into the hold with the furniture. If you don’t like the food of the crew, you are not obliged to eat it. I forbid any of you speak to me. This officer is to look after you. Get to H---- off the bridge!” They were quite subdued and we heard no more from them. They attended to their little affairs in their wooden stable and they slept. Easy enough to manage, these folks, when you put the wind up them. The old man would ask me politely when they wanted anything: “_Could_ you add a little sugar to the coffee? _Could_ you sell us some matches?” The latter was in order to start conversation, for always afterwards he would ask me if the _Pamir_ was surely going back to France. “Why do you wish to know?” “Just because! Honestly, you aren’t going to a neutral port, are you?” “No, we are bound for France.” “And where?” “If you know the country, you will recognize it.” “All right, and I may tell my friends that we are not going to a neutral country?” After the fifth or sixth time I told Fourgues about this. “You bet!” he said; “all these humbugs are of military age. If we landed them in Spain they would have to hurry over and take a taste of our 75’s. They prefer a season in France snugly interned. They know we are much too stupid to hurt them.”