historic payday when after months of penury the troops were paid. That night the accommodations at “the brig” proved inadequate and the wash-house had to be requisitioned for the over-flow. This was well enough until the lodgers fell to fighting among themselves and so fell headlong into the pool. Then such a hullabaloo broke loose that the whole camp turned out to see who had been murdered. Back of the wash-house lies a group of long French barracks, and here lives Company A of the —— Regiment, infantry and “regulars.” Beyond the mess-hall is the hut, a French _abri_ tent with double walls. Ducking under the fly, one finds oneself in a long rectangular canvas room, lighted by a dozen little isinglass windows. The room is filled with folding wooden chairs and long ink-stained tables over which are scattered writing materials, games and well-worn magazines. Opposite the door, at the far end, is the canteen counter, a shelf of books at one side, a victrola and a bulletin board, to which cartoons and clippings are tacked, on the other. Back of the counter on the wall, held in place by safety pins, are the hut’s only decorations, four of the gorgeous French war posters brought with me from Paris. There are two stoves resembling umbrella-stands for heating in the main part of the hut and behind the counter another, about the size and shape of a man’s derby hat, on which I must make my hot chocolate. For lights at night I am told that occasionally one can procure a few quarts of kerosene and then the lamps that stand underneath the counter are brought out and for a few days we shine; but usually we manage as our ancestors did with candle-light. Our candlesticks form a quaint collection; some are real tin _bourgeois_ brought from Paris, some strips of wood, some chewing-gum boxes, while others are empty bottles, “dead soldiers” as the boys call them. As for the bottles, I am particular about the sort that I employ and none of mine are labeled anything but Vittel Water. Others I observe are not so circumspect,—yesterday I chanced in at a canteen in a neighboring village kept by a Y man; on a shelf three “dead soldier” candlesticks stood in a row and their labels read; Champagne, Cognac, Benedictine! For the rest, the hut is equipped with a wheezy old piano, a set of parlor billiards, and a man secretary. It is invariably dense with smoke, part wood and part tobacco, and usually crowded with boys.