He also possesses the faculty of grasping with lightning quickness and judging the opinions expressed by others. He listened with the liveliest interest to Crown Prince Rupprecht as the latter gave him various details about his army, and to me when I described the bombardment of Ostend. It was past half-past ten when the Emperor laid down his cigar and rose to say good-bye with that vigorous handshake which leaves its mark on one's knuckles. The Crown Prince alone accompanied him out into the hall, which immediately adjoined the dining-room and from which a few steps led out into the road. A soldier stood ready holding the Emperor's light greyish-blue cloak, with dark fur collar; another handed him the plain Prussian officer's field-cap. After the host and his guest had exchanged a few more words they went out to the car, which drove off rapidly into the night. FOOTNOTES: [2] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in original sources. [3] From the line "_Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein_" ("Be undismayed, dear Fatherland"), in _Die Wacht am Rhein_. "THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND"--WITH KITCHENER'S ARMY IN FRANCE _Stories Straight from the Trenches_ _Told by Captain Ian Hay Beith, Famous Scotch Novelist with the Argyil and Sutherland Highlanders_ Ian Hay's collection of War stories is pronounced in England "the greatest book of the War." This Scotch novelist went to the trenches to fight with the Highlanders. He sends "back home" graphic and absorbing stories of a thousand heroes. They are full of humor, with bits of superb character drawing that make the men at the front seem like old friends. His division has been badly cut up and seriously reduced in numbers during the War; he has risen from a sub-lieutenant to the rank of Captain, finally to be transferred to the machine gun division and recommended for a military cross. The story of the first hundred thousand was originally contributed in the form of an anonymous narrative to _Blackwood's Magazine_. In a letter to his publishers, Capt. Beith describes the circumstances under which he is writing: "I write this from the stone floor of an outhouse, where the pigmeal is first accumulated and then boiled up at a particularly smelly French farm, which is saying a good deal. It is a most interesting life and if I come through the present unpleasantness I shall have enough copy to last me twenty years." His pictures of the Great Struggle, uniquely rich in graphic human detail, have been collected into a volume, "The First Hundred Thousand," by _Houghton, Mifflin and Company_, of Boston and New York, which is creating wide attention. One of the stories entitled, "The Front of the Front," is here retold by permission of his publishers. [4] I--THE FRONT OF THE FRONT