to go out on a night raiding party—­crawling on their bellies with their knives as their only weapons.  Finally two of them returned with new pairs of boots.  Showing them proudly to their amazed Captain, they said humbly, “Yes, sire!  But you would be pained to learn how long we had to hunt for a fit!” There is also the story of the festive Tommy who tried to play a practical joke on his German prisoner by slipping a lighted bomb in the German’s pocket.  The Tommy then started to run; the German thought he must keep up with his captor and Tommy realized that the joke was on him, just as the bomb went off and killed them both.

Such stories are innumerable.  They are probably untrue.  But they indicate what men at war think is funny; they reflect a certain impoliteness and lack of courtesy that prevails in war.  As it wears on it grows more or less unneighbourly.  And yet the upheaval of war is just a passing emotional disturbance in the normal life of men.  Even in France, even in the war zone, there is no glorifying of war; men in war, at least on our side of the line, hate war more than they hate the Germans.  And with the whole heart of the civilized world—­if one frankly may call the Turk and the Prussian the savages that they are—­set upon maintaining this war to a victory for the allies, civilization may be said to be in the war as a make-shift.  Everywhere one hears that it is a war against war.  Every one is “longing for the dawn of peace” when it shall come with justice, and in the meantime France is as deeply devoted to healing the wounds of war as it is in promoting the war.  Six hundred French societies are devoted to various war works of mercy!  Every man and woman in France who is not a soldier or a nurse is working in one of these societies.  And yet life goes on with all this maladjustment of its cams and cogs and levers much as in its ordinary routine.  There never were more joyous dahlias and phlox and china asters than we saw coming back from that training camp where men were learning the big death game.  And when we came to Paris the real business of war seemed remote.  Of course, Paris is affected by the war.  But Paris is not war-like.  One doesn’t associate Paris with “grim-visaged war!” For if Paris is not gay, still it remains mighty amiable.  At noon the boulevard cafes are filled to the side-walks, and until nine o’clock at night they give a fair imitation of their former happiness.  Then they close and the picture shows are crowded, and the theaters are filled.  One sees soldiers and their women folk at the opera and at the vaudeville shows more than at the other shows.  During the summer and the autumn a strong man put on a show at the Follies with the soldiers that was the talk of the town.  His game was a tug of war.  He announced that he would give fifty dollars to any soldier who could withstand him.  The strong man sat the soldier down on the floor, foot to foot before him.  Both grasped a pole, and it was the strong man’s “act”