At length we had to leave. A prisoner stepped forward to crank my car, and all of them, the dauntless Frenchman in the center, lined up and gave us the military salute. Before reentering the woods I looked back and saw the blue-coated figure offering a light to the green coat. From cigarette tip to cigarette tip the fraternal spark was being transmitted: the spark that crosses borders and nationalities, that glows in the darkness, and puts mankind at peace. And so we left them all--smoking; smoking out there in the ruins, smoking and dreaming of home. Of home and love unattainable beyond the Rhine; of home and love buried forever in the wreckage of war and of time. * * * * * This week Mademoiselle Froissart and I spent forty-eight hours in Paris, during which time we purchased one thousand toys for our Christmas party. Such a time as I had coralling a taxi to carry our large crate of playthings to the station. Paris was gay and crowded, making up for its four years of gravity, and the conscienceless taxi drivers were having pretty much their own way, refusing all that were going in a direction that did not suit their convenience, and extorting enormous _pour boire_. I stood on the edge of the mad stream of vehicles that pressed by on the boulevard, and watched for an empty taxi. One came, the old reprobate who drove it casting his practiced eye about for a likely looking customer. He deigned to notice me, recognizing me for an American, and well knowing our national childish impatience, and its lucrative consequences. He drove up to the curb. "Where to?" he asked defiantly, blinking his bleary eyes, his red alcoholic face set in insolent lines. "_La Gare du Nord._" He reflected an instant. "Bon," he decided. I got in, resolving to take possession before breaking all the news to him. "First I must stop at the _Grand Bazaar_ to call for a box," I said in a most matter-of-fact way. "Ah ça! non! It can't be done!" he exclaimed in a fury. "How do you expect me to earn my living if I have to go out of my way and wait a century outside a store?" "I will pay you for your time." Still he refused to move. "Déscendez, déscendez!" he cried in an ugly voice. I knew the next one would be just as bad, and besides I had no time to lose. The hour of the train was approaching. Basely I resorted to bribery: "Look here, Monsieur, I am American and I will pay you well. Did you ever know an American to fail to make it worth your while?" He considered, and looked me over appraisingly. "It will be twenty francs then, Madame." This was too outrageous. "Ah non," I said in my turn, but I laughed. "_Ecoutez_, do you know what is in that box I am going to get? Toys for the little children of the devastated regions. If I don't take it with me they will have nothing, nothing at all for Christmas."