It would be impertinent to discuss the fighting qualities of these superb troops. The English Tommy, invariably a keen and usually a perspicacious critic of everything that comes into his range of vision, is apt to comment unfavourably upon what appears to his eye as an undisciplined mob strolling along the roads. But his eyes are gradually opened as first of all he discovers that these men, laden with a far greater weight than he is ever called upon to carry, are travelling quite as fast as he cares to, and then, at the end of the day, he finds that they have made themselves thoroughly comfortable and are enjoying a good meal long before he has thought of anything but the contents of his water-bottle. After that the revelation of their fighting qualities does not come as such a shock to him. Who that has seen them at work, for instance round Souchez or in their magnificent attack on the Double Crassier on October 11, can refrain from blessing our historic national luck for the Allies it has brought us? And throughout his nature runs the Frenchman's traditional love for the turning of an honest penny. No sooner were we settled in our position than a bearded French soldier, probably a newsvendor in civil life, saw his golden opportunity. In his hours off duty he used to walk back many miles from the position, and return with an armful of English newspapers of the day before. How he procured them was a mystery we never solved, for he always arrived with them hours before we could obtain them anywhere ourselves. "Délé peppers!" he would cry, and the whole battery turned out as one man to greet him and buy his wares, which, by the way, he sold cheaper than their price in the neighbouring towns. How much English he understood I never knew; he would talk it freely with the men, but never with the officers--"Non compris" and a shake of the head was his invariable reply to our advances in this direction. But he always knew the contents of the papers he sold, especially the _Daily Mail_. Certainly his ideas occasionally got a little mixed. I am convinced, for instance, that he was under the impression that Lord Northcliffe was either Dictator of England or had changed places with Lord Kitchener. "Monsieur Lor' Notcliffe il va bien ce matin!" he would say with great satisfaction, "il va finir la guerre sur-le-champ." His politics swayed him to the extent that he always refused to bring us French dailies. "Mais non, je vous dis, monsieur. Vous aimez les journaux français? Bien, demain je vous apporterai peut-être _La Vie Parisienne_, _Le Rire_, ce que vous voulez. Mais _Le Temps_, _Le Matin_? Ceux sont les organes honteuses des capitalistes. _L'Homme Enchaîné_, si vous voulez----"