I think most of you will envy the two Eton boys who were on a bicycle tour in France when the war broke out, and who, when the tide began to turn, suddenly found themselves in the fighting zone! By luck more than anything else they stumbled on to the French General Staff, and there came across an English officer. Both implored him to help them to get into the French Army, and, amazing to tell, they were both made honorary sub-lieutenants. Soon they were put on the Commission which had the business of examining the villages improperly devastated by the enemy, for sad to say, as soon as the Germans began to get the worst of it, they wreaked their vengeance on the innocent inhabitants of the villages and small towns through which they were retreating. Mean people always suspect others of being as mean as themselves. The Germans believe that the taking of an unfair advantage is quite the right thing to do in war. But in the end these practices recoil on their doers and keep them in a miserable state of constant fear and suspicion. A worthy French priest and two innocent little boys very nearly fell a victim to the enemy’s terrors. The Germans were having a rest in a village, when their commander noticed that the church clock was stopped. He sent for the priest, and demanded that the clock should be set going again. The curé, accompanied by two of his choir boys, went to wind it up; and as was natural, when once it was wound up it began to strike. The German commander, in a great fright, decided that this was a dodge invented by the curé to warn the French that a number of weary Germans were in his village. At once he had him arrested, and the two little boys as well. Without more ado all three were sentenced to be shot the next morning. All three were brave, but we can imagine what a sad night they must have spent, and how especially sad the old priest must have been that, owing to the fact that he had allowed the two lads to accompany him, they were to have their young lives cut short in such a dreadful way. Early in the morning, an hour before they were to have been executed, the news reached the Germans that the French were on them. They rushed out of the village, forgetting all about their captives. Meanwhile, the priest was so convinced that his last hour had come that he himself opened the door of his temporary prison and went to the village green in order to await the firing party, and to make a last appeal to them to spare the two lads. You can imagine his joy when he saw the familiar blue and red uniforms of his fellow-countrymen. This great war has been illumined by star-like deeds of beautiful, simple humanity, performed, in many cases, by men who were unconscious of their own heroism. One such still shines forth from the Battle of Meaux.