“You aren’t taking rice tonight?”
“Thanks no. Saw the old lady picking ’em out this noon.”
“That’s nothing. I saw the old man picking ’em out of the beans yesterday.”
But why should people come to war if they are going to be so squeamish?
A few days ago one rash soul among us conceived a hankering for salad. She went to Madame and, being ignorant of the French word, demanded simply.
“Avez-vous lettice?”
Madame shook her head uncomprehending, but finally as the words were repeated a light dawned.
“Ah oui, oui, oui!”
She turned and hurried upstairs, descending triumphantly a moment later with a large bundle of old letters! In just what form she expected us to have them served I have not yet been able to ascertain.
The mess-room is so crowded that to reach a seat often requires considerable manœuvering. In one corner stands an ancient dressmaker’s dummy—by popular vote awarded as sweetheart to the most bashful man at table; in the corner opposite is the bed of Madame and Monsieur. The men who get up for early breakfast, swallow their bread and jam and coffee with Monsieur watching from his couch of ease. Today Madame was indisposed and when we came to supper we found that she had retired already. All through the meal she lay there, under the red feather-bed, looking like a dingy, weazened old corpse, staring at the ceiling, her mouth wide open.