But even with the Colonel’s sortie, quiet did not descend on Mauvages for some time. The party below-stairs was not confined to the mess-hall this time but was also being celebrated in the kitchen. At about one o’clock a K. P. stumbled up the stairs and knocked on the door of the Curé’s chamber just across from me. He had some champagne for the Curé, he explained in thick and execrable French. The Curé must drink it in honor of the New Year. It was good champagne. I could hear the Curé replying from his bed in rapid deprecating sentences, but the K. P. held to his point; he had set his heart on the old man’s joining the celebration. “_Champagne bun_,” he kept repeating, “_Vous camarade. Bun annie._” For a long time they carried on the argument, but finally, as the priest implacably refused to open his door, the genial K. P. gave up in disgust, confiding to his friends as he reached the floor that the Curé was, after all, nothing but a dried up old fish. This morning I went down to Headquarters to turn in my accounts. Alas, for the vanity of human intentions! At Christmas I had sent little boxes of fudge to several of the men at the office, hoping thereby to curry favour for my canteen and counteract any bad impressions which our delinquencies in the matter of attending Sunday Services and appropriating other people’s autos might have caused. Now I find I have made more enemies among the ones that I left out, than I made friends of the ones I favoured. In spite of this sad condition of affairs I managed to tease one driver into agreeing to take me to Vaucouleurs. At Vaucouleurs I had been told that there was a commissary where one could purchase candles, and the boys are desperately anxious for candles. At first I did not quite understand so burning a desire as they exhibited, but now I am wise. They want them—poor wretches!—so they can “read their shirts,” before they go to bed! I stayed down in Gondrecourt, missing dinner, and then set out for Vaucouleurs with my heart full of hope and my pockets crammed with currency. It was a long, cold trip in the driving, drizzly rain. Arrived at Vaucouleurs we found that, being the first of the month, the commissary was closed for inventory. Mauvages, January 3. Everybody has a little pet trouble of his own these days. The A. R. has its share and more of them. Lieutenant C. recounted some of his tonight. He had been carrying the dangerous explosives over beyond the woods to the west of the town where they were being blown off. Then the French Town Major had called.