A NIGHT WITH THE FOURTH CORPS. 93 



Lighted candles, stuck in bottles or fastened to rough -hewn 

 blocks of wood, were gleaming brightly on the plain pine boards 

 of the improvised table under the mess- tent, when, the men 

 having been dismissed, the officers sat down for an hour's chat 

 and smoke before turning in ; and although our seats varied 

 in shape and size from a mess-chest to a folding camp-chair, and 

 the table appointments were of the simplest description, it would 

 have been difficult to have found a merrier or more comfortable 

 set of men than that of which our little party was composed. 

 A handsome, soldierly lot of gentlemen these German officers, 

 treating one with the freedom of the camp, but with the well- 

 bred courtesy of their class, and full of eager hospitality to the 

 stranger from far-off America. Many were the questions asked 

 about the land beyond the sea, where so many of their country- 

 men and their descendants had their homes ; about France, 

 where I had been living for a long time, and about Paris, where 

 I still resided ; about the French army, their life and their hab- 

 its. Then the yarns about the late war between the two coun- 

 tries, the suffering, the hardships, the fun and the fighting, the 

 good wines and fair women of "Sunny France" — yarns that 

 made the youngsters of the mess envious of their elders, and 

 anxious to take part some day in a like, to them, glorious 

 struggle. There was no boasting, no exultation of the victor 

 over the vanquished, but the natural talk of soldiers over the 

 adventures of a campaign, the like of which has seldom been 

 met with in history. 



So the evening wore away in pleasant chat, until the major, 

 our commandant, gave the signal for us to disperse, and we 

 sought our beds. By the kind forethought of one of the officers 

 — most amiable and considerate of lieutenants — I found that 

 a comfortable lair had been prepared for me by his side in one 

 of the fire-rings, and snugly wrapped in our overcoats, a rubber 



