TABLE TALK AT A FLANDERS MESS.
"Look out," warned the Colonel as they stumbled along the Rue de la Gare, "there's a hole somewhere about here." The Canadian officers passed gingerly on feeling their way down the inky street. A Zeppelin had been over the night before and the lighting regulations were being strictly enforced.
Suddenly the Captain stopped, passed his hand along a brick wall, gave a pull at a wire, and a gong on the inside rang like a fire alarm.
"How in the dickens you can see in this darkness beats me," said the Colonel. "You must have eyes like a French cat."
The door was opened by Bittleson, and the three officers entered and walked along the dimly lit, tiled hall into a room at the far end.
"Home, Sweet Home," said the Colonel looking around the room. "It is the nearest thing we can get to it anyway, worse luck." They all threw their British warms and caps onto a large chair, flung their sam-brown belts on top of them and picking out their own respective easy chairs drew up before the fire, which was burning brightly in the French grate stove in the corner of the mess room, formerly the dining room of Madame Deswaerts. The whole side of the room facing the rose garden and pigeon cots was glassed in and the two huge French windows were, no doubt, a pleasant feature in the summer time; at present they admitted a great deal of the cold, damp air from outside.
"Rawson," called the Colonel. Rawson a little black-haired Jew, the Doctor's batman and temporary mess cook, entered.
"Yessir," said Rawson.
"Put some more coal on that fire; it's as cold as hell in here," grumbled the Colonel.
The fire was duly replenished while the Colonel took a cigarette from his case and opened his "Bystander."