I would you might go with me, all you who love France, into one of those Parisian houses, where after dinner when the cloth has been removed, the huge road maps are spread out on the dining-room table, and every one eagerly bends over them with bated breath, while the latest _communique_ is read. Fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and little children, friends and relatives, solemnly, anxiously await the name of their _secteurs_--the _secteurs_ where _their_ loved ones are engaged. How all the letters are read, re-read and handed about, each one seeking a hidden sense, the meaning of an allusion; how dark grows every brow when the news is not so good--what radiant expanse at the word victory. And through fourteen hundred long days this same scene has been repeated, and no one has ever quailed. The theatres have cellars prepared to receive their audiences in case of bombardment, and one of our neighbours, Monsieur Walter, has just written asking permission in my absence to build an armoured dug-out in the hallway of my home. "It is precisely the organisation of this dugout that prompts my writing to you, _chere Madame_. "So much bronchitis and so many other ills have been contracted in cellars, that I hesitate to take my children down there; but on the other hand, I dare not leave them upstairs, where they would be altogether too exposed. It is thus that I conceived the idea of asking your permission to transform into a sort of 'Dug-out dormitory'--(if I may be permitted the expression) the little passage way, which in your house separates the dining-room from the green room. To have something absolutely safe, it would be necessary to give the ceiling extra support, then set steel plates in the floor of the little linen room just above and sandbag all the windows. "Naturally, I have done nothing pending your consent. Useless to say, we will put everything in good order if you return, unless you should care to use the dug-out yourself. My wife and I shall anxiously await your reply." And this in Paris, June 28th, 1918! I do not know what particular epoch in world war events served as inspiration to the author of a certain ditty, now particularly popular among the military. But decidedly his injunction to "Pack all your troubles in an old kit bag, And smile, smile, smile," has been followed out to the letter, in the case of the Parisian, who has also added that other virtue "Patience" to his already long list of qualities. With the almost total lack of means of communication, a dinner downtown becomes an expedition, and a theatre party a dream of the future.