"Ah, it's the rats that worry you," said Titi; "you'll soon get accustomed to them--the place swarms with those fellows." A nice prospect indeed! Every time I tried to go to sleep I was aroused by a rat cantering over my face, so at last I determined to sit up, gladly accepting Titi's offer of tobacco and cigarette-papers. "The Sergeant of the Guard to-night is a good sort," Titi told me, "and he won't say anything if he smells a whiff of smoke." At 2.30 A.M. the Sergeant turned up, and when he ordered us to get up and to clear out, I was already rejoicing at the idea that I should be able to spend a few hours in bed: but I was sorely disappointed when we were taken to the pump and ordered to fill the two huge tanks where the chargers had to be watered in the morning. The night--it was early in December--was a bitterly cold one, and the nipping wind pierced us to the bones in the intervals between our turns at the pump. It was nearly five o'clock before we had concluded our work: I rushed to my bed, and when, a few minutes later, the Corporal called out for the names of the sick men who wanted to go to the medical visit, I put mine down, notwithstanding Titi's warning that if the Surgeon-major did not consider me ill, I should get an extra four days _Salle de Police_ for malingering. At 6 A.M., after _réveille_, the Sergeant-major came to the room and called me. "Look here," he said, "you are not going to begin these tricks with me--to report yourself sick just because you have slept in the _Salle de Police_." I assured him that I was really ill. "So much the better for you, if you really are," he replied; "but mind you, I shall warn the Surgeon-major, and if he finds that you are shamming there'll be another eight days for you. And, by-the-by," he added, "I want to warn you that troopers who are punished with _Salle de Police_ are not allowed to use the canteen, and if I find that you've set foot there--God help you! You will also, during the two hours of rest you get every day, have to do _corvées_ (hard work, such as cleaning the cells, carrying _jules_ about, and doing any unpleasant jobs that have to be performed in the barracks)." With this intimation he walked away. Need I say that, now I knew all that _Salle de Police_ implied, it was not without dread that I looked forward to the seven days I had still to undergo. Although the description of my adventures has been but just begun, enough has, perhaps, already been said to indicate that the military training which might be made of real educational value to French youngsters is but a sordid and degrading experience, to be remembered with loathing, or forgotten--if possible. FOOTNOTE: [18] A high monument in Paris, somewhat like the Nelson Column. CHAPTER VI