I allowed myself to be robed and tucked comfortably into the chair. Alphonse busied himself with the instruments of his profession.
"Five years ago it was another world, M'sieu," he said, churning a wooden bowl to mountains of lather. "It is never again the same. The Marne ... Verdun ... Soissons. If M'sieu permits I would like to tell him of those years."
I nodded and he advanced upon me with the brush. He spoke of the retreat to Paris and the strategy of JOFFRE which so nearly overthrew three Prussian armies. He brandished his razor and swept the Boches back over the Marne, he swept them through Senlis, he swept them across the Aisne. His intensity was inspiring. The smouldering fires of bygone battles leapt into his eyes. But it was not the mesmeric shave of 1914. He apologised humbly and applied small pieces of plaster.
The next morning we fought a swaying battle in front of Rheims, and for some few following mornings we skirmished about painlessly in the same vicinity. Then came a sanguinary excursion to Flanders which nearly put me into blue overalls.
A few weeks of trench warfare gave me some respite and allowed my worst wounds to heal.
Then came the epic of Verdun. At least it was to have come, but at the last moment I lost my nerve.
To hear the story of that heroic defence from the lips of one who was concerned so intimately with it is one of my greatest desires. But I am a coward. I cannot face the extravaganza that Alphonse would improvise, neither dare I approach him for a mere haircut and so confess to having deserted his other form of artistry.
Yesterday I purchased a safety-razor and a packet of new blades.
[Illustration: _Mary (stricken with remorse as minnow approaches her hook)._ "OH! OH! OH! I DON'T WANT TO CATCH IT; ITS MUMMY WOULD MISS IT SO."]
"Make some syrup by boiling three-quarters of a pint of water, 1/2 lb. of castor sugar, and the juice from a tinned pineapple. Lay the pineapple in a glass bowl cut in small slices."--_Weekly Paper_.
To know that you can't draw and to be told so by your friends are two very different things. Honnell can't draw, but hates his inseparable Swan to tell him so. Honnell's sketches have hitherto been criticised only by people who also wanted their drawing flattered. Swan learned bluntness on the Yukon. So they are an odd pair to be chumming now in the Arctic circle. They are so friendly that they will tramp together for half a day and exchange scarcely so much as a grunt of conversation.