The Captain I discovered in front of my canteen counter, and knowing him to be a southerner and a gentleman, I summoned my courage and whispered a petition for a few drops of something, from the flask he carried in his pocket, to put in the egg-nogg for the sick boy. The Captain, who was corpulent and dignified, in some embarrassment replied that he was unfortunately without anything at present, but that the lack would be immediately supplied. He disappeared, returning to produce before my startled eyes, from beneath his coat, a life-sized bottle labeled cognac. Then he invited himself into the kitchen to help make the egg-nogg. He proved expert. I quaked fearing the customers would sniff the cognac through the lattice-work. The sick boy came, turned out to be one of the Captain’s own men. The Captain cocked an unsympathetic eye. “What’s the matter with you, Smith?” he questioned, “been drunk again?” “Captain,” I scolded horrified, “I won’t have any rough talk like that in my kitchen!” Smith indignantly denied the charge. He drank his egg-nogg and left looking three shades happier. “Captain,” said I, “did you ever make an egg-nogg for one of your men before?” “Never,” replied the Captain with decision. He drained his own bowl and took his departure. “I will leave the bottle behind,” he told me. “But I don’t want it!” “You might need it again,” he declared. And nothing could induce him to change his mind. That bottle weighs on my conscience like a crime. I have hidden the guilty thing in a corner of the store-room shelf behind some perfectly innocent-looking bundles of stationery and a pile of safety razor blades. But out of sight it continues to haunt my mind. I feel as if I were giving sanctuary to the devil. And, worst of all, I have a vision of coming into the hut some day to find that the bottle has been discovered and the whole Y. M. C. A. is on a jag. Mauvages, November 11. It isn’t true. It isn’t real. It can’t be that the war is really ended. This morning I awoke to the sound of the most tremendous barrage I have ever heard. At this distance however it was almost more like a sensation than a sound, a sort of incessant thrilling, throbbing vibration.