Besides Emil and Guillaume we have four soldier friends-of-the-family, as it were, who also frequent the back room. The canteen is supposed to be a strictly civilian affair, but we make an exception in favour of the four _camarades_, and they repay us by helping chop the stove-wood which is stacked in a great pile outside the door and is nothing more or less than the stakes to which were once fastened barbed-wire entanglements. Each stake still bears two little rings of wire around it and every few days one has to clear out the accumulation of barbed-wire entanglements from the chocolate-stove. _Les défences de Verdun_ the poilus call the wood-pile. The poilus are all artillerymen from a regiment of “75s.” Guillaume has brought down three Boche planes, he tells me, and Emil five. One of the poilus is a handsome brigadier, or corporal, who wears wooden shoes. I said something about _sabots_ the other day. But don’t they wear _sabots_ in America? The poilus were astonished to learn that wooden shoes were unknown among us! There is also a sergeant who is the aristocrat of our little circle, a dreamy looking lad, a student of architecture at the Beaux Arts. Yesterday he shyly proffered me an envelope; in it was a pretty pen-and-ink sketch of two little girls, one in the costume of Alsace, the other of Lorraine, proffering bouquets, and underneath was written, “Souvenir of a Frenchman who thanks America for having given the victory more quickly.” Our poilu friends are constantly straying into the back room in order to read the newspapers here and to get a cup of hot chocolate. Every now and then they all get together and hold a _vin rouge_ tea party. On these occasions it is evidently a mystery to them why, though I join them in eating bread and cheese, I always refuse the _vin rouge_! The politeness of the poilus is equalled by that of the clientele. They are extraordinarily grateful for what little we do for them. Today an old lady, in spite of anything I could say, insisted on tipping me with a two franc piece! I spent it buying chocolates and cigarettes for the poilus at the Canteen-in-the-Convent. Every class of society flows into my little canteen from gently bred ladies under the escort of immaculate officers to old men who resemble nothing but the forlornest vagabonds. The cheerfulness and courage of the refugees in general is astonishing. One would think that a room full of people engaged in such a mournful mission would be a gloomy place, but on the contrary, although occasionally you see a woman quietly sobbing, at most times we fairly buzz with pleasant sociability. The women come in with faces bright with excitement. “Oh the poor Cathedral!” they cry. “Did you find anything of your home?” I ask. For a moment the tears swim in their brave eyes. “_Rien_” they answer shaking their heads. “Nothing!”