"Helpful, sir! I don't know what we should do without it. You see it's different here from what it is in big towns where the men are in billets. We're away, as you may say, from any town that's sizeable, and there's no place to go to of an evening, except the public-house; and if the Y.M.C.A. hadn't been here we should have nothing to do but fool around. But the work they're doing here is just champion. They have entertainments every night, and if you don't feel like going to them, there's a room where you can read the papers, and write your letters or play games; then they have all sorts of good books for us to read." "And how are you getting on with your French?" I asked. Tom blushed as he replied, "Would you like to see my report, sir?" and he took it from his tunic proudly. "Why, Tom, this is splendid!" I said, after reading it. "Ay, I have worked fair hard at it," said Tom; "but my difficulty is getting my tongue round the words. You see, they don't know how to pronounce, these French people, and you have to pronounce their way else they wouldn't understand what you wur saying, and you have to get a grip on it or you can't understand what they are saying. I can conjugate the verbs," added Tom proudly, "but when they speak to me in French, that's anything like a long sentence, I get mixed up. While I'm getting hold of the first part of what they're saying, I forget the rest; but I will master it. What a French chap can learn a Lancashire chap can. "Do you know, sir," went on Tom, "that the Y.M.C.A. has got no less than six huts here; each of them will hold a thousand men, and they are jam-full every night. And all the workers are so friendly too." "And do you go to any religious services, Tom?" I asked. "I been to two or three," replied Tom, "but I don't hold much wi' religion. Still they're grand people, and you may ask any man in the camp, from the sergeant-major down to the newest recruit, and they will all tell you the same thing, The Y.M.C.A. is a fair God-send to us." I found out afterwards that Alec McPhail had not followed Tom's example. Alec had discovered a wayside public-house about a mile from the camp, where he and several others of his companions spent most of their spare time. "I'm noan religious," said Tom rather boastfully; "but the Y.M.C.A. showed me that I was making a fool of myself, and they have made me see that a soldier ought to be a gentleman. We're not a lot of riff-raff in the Army; we have come at the call of our King and Country to do our bit. And what I say is that a chap ought to live up to his job; we have got a big, grand job, and we chaps as is to do it ought to be worthy of our job."