There is a Salvation Army hut here, the first one I have seen. It is down by the main road; the canteen occupies one end of a barracks, which is used as a store-house, then there is an ell containing the kitchen. The staff comprises one man and two women; they are pleasant people, “real home folks.” Two or three times a week, for supplies are hard to obtain, they make pie or cake or doughnuts. On these nights, passing the hut on our way back from mess, one sees a long line stretching down the road, waiting patiently for the chance to get a piece of pie “like Mother used to make.” Our relationships are cordial. We help each other out in the matter of change. They come to our hut for sweet chocolate and movies; we go to them, when our consciences will permit, for doughnuts. I only wish that one of their huts could be in every camp in France. Abainville, July 8. By courtesy of a group of officers we are messing at a house with a particularly noisome front-door gutter and the Most Beautiful Girl in France to wait on us. La Belle Marguerite, as I always think of her, is tall and stately with a lovely gracious bearing and a sensitive, responsive face; what’s more, she only paints a little. She affects to speak no English but I suspect she understands a good deal. At meal times when we are present the officers never look twice at her, but any evening that one happens past the house one can see two cigarette ends gleaming from the darkness just inside the mess-room window: the officers are making up for lost time. Yesterday La Belle looked so pale and _distraite_ at dinnertime that I was quite distressed, fancying heart-break. “Mademoiselle Marguerite is sad,” I told Madame my hostess. Madame immediately went forth on a Visit of investigation. “Mademoiselle has the tooth-ache!” she announced on her return. Today at dinner, having finished our salade, we waited in vain for dessert. La Belle Marguerite, usually so prompt and so efficient, simply did not appear. After waiting until I grew tired I gave it up and left. Passing by the kitchen door I glanced inside. In front of the hearth stood Marguerite and a handsome Russian officer, and oh! the coquetry of her eyes, the seduction of her smiling, scarlet lips! It was evident that the mess in the next room was wiped as clean from her mind as if it never had been! Whether my messmates ever got their dessert or not I haven’t heard. Besides La Belle Marguerite, the one unique feature of our mess is a certain set of plates. These are French picture plates with jokes on them. The jokes are all of a gustatory nature and pertain to things which most people would prefer not to think about while they are eating. One rather striking design represents the proprietor of a Swiss resort hotel delicately sniffing a platter of fish as he says to the waitress: “These trout are passe. Keep them for the customers who have colds in their heads.” On another an irate diner is exclaiming over an item on his bill: