"A month ago.... But it is nothing to us, eh? Let us eat our breakfasts." The Baron bowed grandly to me. "Monsieur le Délégue," he began in his smooth, formal voice, "once again we remind ourselves that it is thanks to you and the generous American people that we have bread. It is thanks to you that our noble Belgium is not starving.... Eh bien! Let us eat our breakfasts." And so we did. (Told in the _Red Cross Magazine_.) GRIM HUMOR OF THE TRENCHES _As Seen by Patrick Corcoran, of the Royal Engineers_ Patrick Corcoran, of the Royal Engineers, on leave in New York, gives a picture in which the monotony of slaughter is relieved by wagers among the men and pranks with a football as the charge begins. Told in the _New York World_. I--AN IRISHMAN TELLS HIS TALE "To the German soldier war is a serious business. To the Frenchman it is sublime devotion. To the Englishman it is bully sport." This from Capt. Patrick Corcoran of the Royal Engineers, hero of a dozen "Somewheres" in France, twice wounded and on permanent leave in New York City. "And to the Irishman?" I asked. "Fighting always was the Irishman's great amusement," he said. "The English are good sports, but they never did get the fun out of their fun that the Irish do." * * * * * Fun in the trenches! With shells dropping all around and blowing the bodies of your comrades into red fragments! What do the soldiers do, I wondered, when this is happening? The Frenchmen sing, this captain told me. Not to keep up their courage, but joyously, exultantly. "And the British?" "Sure, they lay bets on what the next shell will do." * * * * * "The 'sausages' are the fine toys," the captain went on. "The Boche call 'em minnewieffers, but they look like sausages. They always come with a series of whoops, and you can tell almost exactly where they're going to hit. Then they sit down and rest five seconds before they explode; they muss things up a little sometimes, but they're decent about it. "But the whizz-bangs--nobody loves a whizz-bang. You can't even hear them coming. You never have time to place a bet. They just whizz and bang in the same breath; and if you happen to be conscious after that, you help to bandage." * * * * * Capt. Corcoran enlisted as a private. I wondered how he came to get his commission. "So did I," he said. "I was carrying despatches to different places within our sector; couldn't go to another sector without special orders. But one day I was asked to take a despatch to another sector and I took it. When I came back, they made me a lieutenant. Nothing at all had happened, and I couldn't understand it. I didn't have any pull that I knew of; and besides, pulls don't count nowadays. "They told me a while later," he added, "that I was the seventh man sent out with that despatch. The first six were killed." II--"I WAS IN A CAVE ON CHRISTMAS EVE"