“That's Babette; Baboon I call her,” said Walters with a laugh. “Chocolat,” said Walters. “That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember.” “I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is this. You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the typewriter tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night and I'll give it to you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to your sergeant. See?” “This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out you'll have to make another.” The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the darkness of the room with a candle and two cracked bowls from which steam rose, faint primrose-color in the candle light. Walters drank his bowl down at a gulp, grunted and went on talking. “Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn soon too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the division'll be making out to be a college man. How did you get your tip?” “From a fellow in Paris.” “You've been to Paris, have you?” said Walters admiringly. “Is it the way they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at this woman here. She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a baby too!” “But who do the applications go in to?” “To the colonel, or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a Catholic?” “No.” “Neither am I. That's the hell of it. The regimental sergeant-major is.” “Well?” “I guess you haven't noticed the way things run up at divisional headquarters. It's a regular cathedral. Isn't a mason in it.... But I must beat it.... Better pretend you don't know me if you meet me on the street; see?” “All right.” Walters hurried out of the door. Andrews sat alone looking at the flutter of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth, while he sipped chocolate from the warm bowl held between the palms of both hands. He remembered a speech out of some very bad romantic play he had heard when he was very small. “About your head I fling... the curse of Rome.” He started to laugh, sliding back and forth on the smooth bench which had been polished by the breeches of generations warming their feet at the fire. The red-faced woman stood with her hands on her hips looking at him in astonishment, while he laughed and laughed. “Mais quelle gaite, quelle gaite,” she kept saying.