We were receiving so much that to make no return seemed ungracious, and we insisted that John T. McCutcheon should decorate the wall of the new mess-room with the caricatures that make the Chicago _Tribune_ famous. Our hosts were delighted, but it was hardly fair to McCutcheon. Instead of his own choice of weapons he was asked to prove his genius on wet whitewash with a stick of charred wood. It was like asking McLaughlin to make good on a ploughed field. But in spite of the fact that the whitewash fell off in flakes, there grew upon the wall a tall, gaunt figure with gleaming eyes and teeth. Chocolat paid it the highest compliment. He gave a wild howl and fled into the night. Then in quick succession, while the Frenchmen applauded each swift stroke, appeared the faces of the song writer, the comedian, the wounded man, and the commanding officer. It was a real triumph, but the surprises of the evening were not at an end. McCutcheon had but just resumed his seat when the newly finished rear wall of the mess-hall crashed into the room. Where had been rocks and cement was a gaping void, and a view of a garden white with snow. While we were rescuing the song writer from the debris McCutcheon regarded the fallen wall thoughtfully. "They feared," he said, "I was going to decorate that wall also, and they sent Chocolat outside to push it in." [Illustration: _From a photograph, copyright by American Press Association._ After the retreat from Serbia. English Tommies intrenched in the ten-mile plain outside of Salonika. "Are they down-hearted? No!"] The next day we walked along the bank of the Vardar River to Gravec, about five miles north of Strumnitza station. Five miles farther was Demir-Kapu, the Gate of Iron, and between these two towns is a high and narrow pass famous for its wild and magnificent beauty. Fifteen miles beyond that was Krivolak, the most advanced French position. On the hills above Gravec were many guns, but in the town itself only a few infantrymen. It was a town entirely of mud; the houses, the roads, and the people were covered with it. Gravec is proud only of its church, on the walls of which in colors still rich are painted many devils with pitchforks driving the wicked ones into the flames. One of the _poilus_ put his finger on the mass of wicked ones. "Les Boches," he explained. Whether the devils were the French or the English he did not say, possibly because at the moment they were more driven against than driving.