He used to tell an amusing story of an encounter he had in France with a British officer from one of the Dominions, who walked into his bedroom late one night, after a liberal consumption of liquor, and said he "wanted the fire" and asked if Bucci was "that Portuguese." Bucci, having persuasively but vainly asked him to go away, got out of bed and genially taking him by the shoulders,--he is a powerful man,--ran him out into the passage. Whereat the British officer, surprised and protesting, said, "You have no business to treat me like that. Don't you see that I am a Major and have three decorations?" pointing to his left breast. "Yes," said Bucci, "and I am a Colonel, and I have some decorations too, but I don't wear them on my nighty, and I want to go to sleep." He had been in Gorizia before Caporetto, and had kept, as a melancholy souvenir, the maps showing the line of his own Regiment's retreat. "I call it the Via Crucis," he said. "I want to go back. I want to see an advance across the Piave with Cavalry and Field Artillery. I want to advance at the gallop. I have applied to be sent down there." He was a natural leader of men, and I felt that I would willingly follow him anywhere. We saw a good deal too of the officers of a French Observation Balloon. One of their officers was a tall man, promoted from the ranks, with big upturned moustaches, a delightful smile and twinkling eyes. He smoked more cigars than any man I have ever met. He smoked them, like some men smoke cigarettes, one after another all the evening, with no interval between. He came from Marseilles. Another was from Auvergne, always most elegantly dressed. He never smoked at all, for he was very proud of his white teeth. He spoke Italian and German, but no English. A third was a little blonde Alsatian business man. He was usually rather quiet, but one evening I saw him roused, when someone had said something that displeased him about Alsace. Then he showed us that he could be eloquent when he chose. They are very implacable, these Frenchmen. Undoubtedly Clemenceau spoke in their name, when he said, "my war aim is victory." Another Frenchman said to me once, "when Clemenceau is speaking, no one dares to interrupt, for they know it is the voice of the soldier at the Front speaking." And one can scarcely wonder that they are implacable. In Alsace-Lorraine and in the occupied territories of Northern France, they say that it is known with complete certainty that the daughters and wives and widows of many French officers and men have been compelled to take up their abode in brothels, and there to await at all hours of the day and night the visits of their country's enemies. Is it surprising that certain French Regiments, knowing these things, never take prisoners? And can one fail to admire, even if one does not unconditionally agree with, the soldier who would fight on and on, until everyone has been killed, rather than accept anything less than a complete victory?