Lithe, wiry, lean-faced with close-cropped hair, pale blue gimlet eyes and an almost unvarying expression of intense seriousness on his face, Pat, when present, is the life of the hut. Forever at his clowning, you would never dream from his demeanour that Pat’s domestic affairs are in a state little short of catastrophic. His wife, according to her photograph a handsome, sullen, passionate type, half Mexican, ran away about a year ago, taking with her all his money that happened to be handy, together with his new automobile. Encountering some of Pat’s friends, she had explained her apparently care-free single state by telling them that Pat was dead. Now she has discovered that Pat is in France, she is all for reconciliation. She has written him a letter in which she addresses him as her dear husband about six times to each sheet, informing him that she needs money, and inquiring of him what he wished her to do with his clothes. “What did you answer?” I asked, for Pat, who must always share his correspondence, had shown me the letter. “I told her,” grinned Pat, “she cu’d keep the clothes and maybe she’d find another man to fit ’em.” But there is another and more serious side to the matter. It seems that the lady in the case has written to the Captain of A Company, requesting him to forward a large proportion of Pat’s pay to his deserving and indigent wife. Whether or not this will be done is still uncertain. Pat refuses to discuss the possibilities, but from the glint in his eyes I have a premonition that if next pay day Pat finds any considerable deduction made from his pay, that that night one wild Irishman will run amuck in Saint Thiebault. Occasionally in the midst of Pat’s racy discourses I overhear things not meant for my ears, such as his remarking how in Rochester once he “went on a seven day’s pickle in company with a female dreadnut.” But usually he is very careful to only “pull gentle stuff” in my hearing. The other day he delivered himself of a wonderful dissertation on the deceitfulness of pious people, ending with this gem; “So whenever I see one of these guys comin’ towards me with a gold crown on his bean, looking’ as if he couldn’t sin if he had to, why I nip tight on to my pocketbook and I cross to the other side of the street!”