Grey dawn is breaking over the spongy plain. To-day will be the same as yesterday, to-morrow like to-day. The doctor will wave his arms and say, "Très triste, messiou," and he will not know what is sad, no more shall I. Then he will give me a humorous lecture in a style between Bernard Shaw and the Bible. The padre will write letters, play patience and go out riding. The guns will thunder, Boches will be killed, some of our men too. We shall lunch off bully beef and boiled potatoes, the beer will be horrible and the colonel will say to me, "Bière française no bonne, messiou." In the evening, after a dinner of badly cooked mutton, with mint sauce, and boiled potatoes, the inevitable gramophone will appear. We shall have "The Arcadians," "The Mikado," then "Destiny Waltz"—"pour vous, messiou"—and "Mrs. Finzi-Magrini" for the colonel, and finally "The Lancashire Ramble." Unfortunately for me, the first time that I heard this circus tune I imitated a juggler catching balls in time to the music. This little comedy henceforth took its place in the traditions of the Mess, and if this evening at the first notes of the "Ramble" I should forget to play my part the colonel will say, "Allons, messiou, allons," pretending to juggle, but I know my duty and I shall not forget; for Colonel Bramble only cares for familiar scenes and fine old crusted jokes. His favourite number is a recitation by O’Grady of "Going on leave." When he is in a bad temper, when one of his old friends has been made a brigadier-general, or been given a C.B., this recitation is the only thing that can make him smile. He knows it by heart and, like the children, stops the doctor if he misses a sentence or alters a reply. "No, doctor, no; the Naval officer said to you, ’When you hear four loud short whistles, it means that the ship has been torpedoed,’ and you replied, ’And what if the torpedo carries away the whistle?’" The doctor, having found his place, goes on. Parker, too, one day found a remark which ever afterwards had a brilliant success. He got it out of a letter that a chaplain had written to the _Times_. "The life of the soldier," wrote this excellent man, "is one of great hardship; not infrequently mingled with moments of real danger." The colonel thoroughly enjoys the unconscious humour of this remark, and would quote it whenever a shell scattered gravel over him. But his great resource, if the conversation bores him, is to attack the padre on his two weak points: bishops and Scotchmen. The padre, who comes from the Highlands, is madly patriotic. He is convinced that it is only Scotchmen who play the game and who are really killed. "If history told the truth," he says, "this war would not be called the European War, but the war between Scotland and Germany."