Work was slack in the Autumn owing to the fearful floods of rain, and several of the F.A.N.Y.s took up fencing and went once a week at eight o’clock to a big “Salle d’Escrime” off the Rue Royale.  A famous Belgian fencer, I forget his name, and a Frenchman, both stationed in the vicinity, instructed, and “Squig” kindly let me take her lessons when she was on leave.  Fencing is one of the best tests I know for teaching you to keep your temper.  When my foil had been hit up into the air about three times in succession to the triumphant Riposte! of the little Frenchman, I would determine to keep “Quite cool.”  In spite of all, however, when I lunged forward it was with rather a savage stamp, which he would copy delightedly and exclaim triumphantly—­“Mademoiselle se fache!” I could have killed that Frenchman cheerfully!  His quick orders “Pare, pare—­quatre, pare—­contre—­Riposte!” etc. left me completely bewildered at first.  Hope was a great nut with the foils and she and the Frenchman had veritable battles, during which the little man, on his mettle and very excited, would squeal exactly like a rabbit.  The big Belgian was more phlegmatic and not so easily moved.

One night I espied a pair of boxing gloves and pulled them on while waiting for my turn.  “Mademoiselle knows la boxe?” he asked interestedly.

“A little, a very little, Monsieur,” I replied.  “Only what my brother showed me long ago.”

“Montrez,” said he, drawing on a pair as well, and much to the amusement of the others we began preliminary sparring.  “Mademoiselle knows ze-k-nock-oot?” he hazarded.

I did not reply, for at that moment he lifted his left arm, leaving his heart exposed.  Quick as lightning I got in a topper that completely winded him and sent him reeling against the wall.  When he got his breath back he laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and whenever I met him in the street he flew up a side alley in mock terror.  I was always designated after that as Mademoiselle qui sait la boxe—­oh, la la!

In spite of repeated efforts on the part of R.E.s. there was a spot in the roof through which the rain persistently dripped on to my face in the night.  They never could find it, so the only solution was to sleep the other way up! C’est la guerre, and that’s all there was to it.

One cold blustery day I had left “Susan” at the works in Boulogne and was walking along by the fish market when I saw a young fair-haired staff officer coming along the pavement toward me.  “His face is very familiar,” I thought to myself, and then, quick as a flash—­“Why, it’s the Prince of Wales, of course!” He seemed to be quite alone, and except for ourselves the street was deserted.  How to cope?  To bob or not to bob, that was the question?  Then I suddenly realized that in a stiff pair of Cording’s boots and a man’s sheepskin-lined mackintosh, sticking out to goodness knows where, it would be a sheer impossibility.