Our mess is held at the house of an old couple who live a little way above our billet on the hill. The house was differentiated from the others in the row by a spindling and discouraged tree which stood in a green tub outside; as this was the only tree in front of a house on the whole street it has always been easy to pick out our otherwise undistinguished entrance. Last night however, the weather waxing colder, the tree moved indoors. This morning the whole Y. personnel wandered distractedly up and down the hill trying to identify the mess-house door, until some kindly villagers, sensing the situation, came out on their front steps and pointed us to the place. The house, like most of the village dwellings, consists, downstairs, of just two rooms. In the front room the family cooks, eats and spends its days. In the back room the family sleeps, and here we have our mess. The drawback of this arrangement is that one has to pass through the kitchen in order to reach the dining-room and this is likely to spoil one’s pleasure in the meal that follows. As for me, I go on the principle that what one doesn’t know won’t take one’s appetite away, and so hurry through the kitchen with one eye shut and the other fixed on the door ahead of me. Said my right-hand neighbor to my left-hand neighbor at supper the other day, as he offered him the _pièce de résistance_ of the meal: “You aren’t taking rice tonight?” “Thanks no. Saw the old lady picking ’em out this noon.” “That’s nothing. I saw the old man picking ’em out of the beans yesterday.” But why should people come to war if they are going to be so squeamish? A few days ago one rash soul among us conceived a hankering for salad. She went to Madame and, being ignorant of the French word, demanded simply. “_Avez-vous_ lettice?” Madame shook her head uncomprehending, but finally as the words were repeated a light dawned. “_Ah oui, oui, oui!_” She turned and hurried upstairs, descending triumphantly a moment later with a large bundle of old letters! In just what form she expected us to have them served I have not yet been able to ascertain. The mess-room is so crowded that to reach a seat often requires considerable manœuvering. In one corner stands an ancient dressmaker’s dummy—by popular vote awarded as sweetheart to the most bashful man at table; in the corner opposite is the bed of Madame and Monsieur. The men who get up for early breakfast, swallow their bread and jam and coffee with Monsieur watching from his couch of ease. Today Madame was indisposed and when we came to supper we found that she had retired already. All through the meal she lay there, under the red feather-bed, looking like a dingy, weazened old corpse, staring at the ceiling, her mouth wide open.