Show NOW SEE WAR ONLY AS GREAT AFFAIR parisians Pari take interest in gle only as a magnificent it spectacle PEN PICTURE OF FRENCH LIFE people make pilgrimages to points of vantage behind the lines where gay weekend week end parties are held chatter shows trend of thought by GEORGE DUFRESNE international news service paris parisians Pari have become so iced to the war that they are now taking great interest in it as a macul magnificent fl spectacle dally daily crowds of french people and tourists from england and america make pilgrimages to points of vantage behind the lines and aty weekend week end parties are held the following letter comes from a near boulogne sur mer it if you would focus the war or that large part of it which Is collected at the base come to the hotel in all wars of course from to capetown thero there is just one hotel which is so to say a universal tryst a sort of charing cross where everyone meets eventually and in III the end it Is a vanity fair perhaps also a slough of despond and delectable mountain where pilgrims of all types and two sexes jostle and nudge where in a flood of khaki and brassards brass ards and womans comans uniforms some few civilians go astray where the incoming and outgoing hero relaxes for a moment his heroism where comedy prods tragedy in the ribs where sentiment turns up holy eyes at quiet courage and where all the medley of actors interrupted in their parts by the hoots of steamers st camers the burr of hydroplanes hydro planes and the tramp ft route marches are apt to miss their cues in tha fog of general rumar humr and chatter could anyone tell what sort of piece in what country he was asked to watch was lie he assisting at his maje tho the comelle fran francaise franca calse tse h q empire or merely armageddon listen for a moment at random to some chattering groups who would have thought of meeting you here all the meetings begin like that lie he one armed colonel who met lis its friend since dongola in 84 or the efant cavalry subaltern who ran into nis its eton friends second sister now tracing missing men at a base office or the old old ex major of something ending in chester cheater who exchanged questions with a famous statesman on the convalescence of their respective sons and thus they chatter the greeting was followed in t s 3 particular instance by a flood ol of questions and answers who have you c ome come to see Is it the brother or the husband who is wounded what not both impossible hurt the sam ok the two of them on different floors of no 7 hospitals hospital both shrapnel and in the shoulders shoulder 7 9 dear me dear me but it you are going to be wounded give me the shoulder all q do well and wat w lat heroes they will bo be why am I 1 hero here ch im running a feed the brute stall you know coffee and cigarettes and bread and butter at peace and plenty prices started with 25 capital in a waiting vat ting room now built bath houses housel and stalls regardless and teed feed em by lie e hundred oh soldiers all soldiers of sorts the difference is that all the fighters say thank you miss and the base fellows are apt to grouse the army had thoughts of killing us off we started a year ago in september they thought about it till april and are now going the pace however they wont kill me in a hurry might as well try to kill the Y al M C A who do a roaring trade in III the same business we save a tragedy a day from bad temper and starvation and a score from drunkenness but it any of your friends went to send us something plump for boxing gloves and punch balls now wait halt half a moment while I 1 watch my chauffeur she cuts the bread and butter you know and well have lunch idiom of initials the room was full of people with amazing brassards brass ards on their arms red white tricolor and even green and someone sameon e was retelling the standard story of the newcomer who as kedan at the base how to go somewhere or other the answer began glibly in the prevalent idiom of initials oh I 1 should go to a T C 0 who will introduce you to the D A D R T who will refer the ria matter ater to G H 0 and then but this was too much for the questioner excuse me ine he said fm off to have a B and S if he had gone on this mission at the moment he would have found two airmen with their feet on the brass rail of the american bar drinking an orange squash and discussing earnestly whether it was worse to be shelled in the air or the trenches they do de aided in favor of the air im fairly terrified at shells on an the ground said one but in the air they dont seem to matter from this they diverged to the obtuseness eness of certain aerial observers who had to see a battery from all angles and make figures of eight above it before they th ey could decide decad g whether it was not a mowing machine or a manure heap however in spite of the observers they were doomed to carry and the shrapnel that was always puncturing their wings but missing their tank and the ground fog and the new german air colossus they were e quite decided that the air a ir was the place of places and their job the picked job and it is a fact that of all the men of all types who pass through this vanity fair the airmen are the most distinct in type the air has lent them its peculiar qualities qua attles of light and breadth as the sailor has borrowed the salt of his bis character from the expanses ot of tile the sea wanted his appetite with their noses on the same brass rail ra 11 lay two great dogs a with every air of aristocracy in his form and manner despite his bis mixed ancestry and a red irish retriever one of the masters had come out from his bin county town to hunt bunt down missing kits the other had bad left the stock exchange to blossom into a train cou con ducting officer and wear a red brassard just got an invitation to shoot grouse gr ouse on the esth said one and a neighbor countered with a quotation from his cifes letter which he took from his pocket and read af if you dot dont come homo hom c soon the patch of will be over and as our on only ly gardener went off today to make fuses its likely to be the last you will see besides your appetite is wanted even the village can cant t cat all the vegetables we plant he H began to read the next sentence but stopped with a jerk almost with a blush and put the letter carefully in his pocketbook then came stories of 0 the dogs rival and these were lost in a sea of chatter of 0 tittle tattle mixed with the grimmest grimmeit grim anecdotes 01 ol war in this way oh ashes out tor for the limelight and other things thinks she cooki looks nice in a nurses kit mow how anyone ever took the idea of giving that man the job heaven knows you know what ho he does ill towne town and the voices sink awful fun it was bits of deu Deutsch ps flying up the air and they squeaked like rabbits when we cheered like boy on holiday the old soldier who spoke had the soft complexion of a boy an and d the hilarity of a schoolboy off as indeed he was tor for a holiday things are bad take it from me what you dont believe it well will you bet me a pony to a liver fiver that the deutsch are not in calais before the end of october done with you a bet then it was dissipating time and the great ladles ladies motored off to their new hos hospitals petals and some went to work and some went to bathe and some to the boat and some to the front and all promised to do all sorts of things at that vague wonderful and evanescent date known as aares la guerre |