The A.P.M. buckled on his Sam Browne belt and prepared for the worst, which he assumed to be but another example of the frailty of human nature when suddenly confronted with unaccustomed luxuries.  When he got to his prey he found him not quite in the state expected.  Usually at the sight of an A.P.M. a soldier, whatever the strength of his case, will express regret, promise reform, and make ready to pass on.  This one stood his ground; on no account would he leave the queue.  He explained to the A.P.M. that he was too used to the manifold and subtle devices of people who wanted to snaffle other people’s places in queues.  He was however quite prepared to parley, and was only too glad to find a fellow-countryman, speaking the right language and having the right sense of justice, to parley with.

He said he had taken his proper place in the line, with no attempt to hustle or jostle anyone else.  He meant to do no one any harm, and he was prepared to pay the due price, in current French notes, whatever it might be.  But having got his place by right he refused to give it up to anyone else, be he French or English, Field Officer or even gendarme.  He had been excessively restrained in resisting the unscrupulous attempts of the gendarme to dislodge him.  If he had made any threat of knocking the gendarme down he had not really intended to take that course.  The threat was only a formal reply to the gendarme’s proposal to stick a sword through his middle.

He was, he said most emphatically, not drunk.  If the A.P.M., in whom he had all confidence, would occupy his place in the queue and keep it for him, he would demonstrate this by a practical test.  In any case he ventured to insist on his point.  Without claiming any special privileges for a man fighting and cooking for his country, he claimed the right of any human being, whatever his nationality, to witness any cinema show which might be in progress.

The underlying good qualities of both nations were evidenced in the sequel.  When the A.P.M. had interpreted the matter the gendarme insisted on an embrace, and the cook permitted it.  Later, I have reason to believe, they witnessed a most moving cinema play together, but not in the Commissaire’s office at the Hotel de Ville.

  Yours ever,
      HENRY.

* * * * *

CHILDREN’S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS.

I.

CAUSE AND EFFECT.

It hadn’t rained for forty days and forty nights.

“The reason it doesn’t rain,” said the guinea-fowl, “is that the barometer is very high.”

But no one listened to her.

“The reason is,” said the duck with the black wings, “that the pond is nearly empty.  When the pond is empty it doesn’t rain.”

“It’s the hen-house,” said the black hen.  “Whenever the roof drips there is rain.”

“It is certainly the hen-house,” said all the hens.