"Mademoiselle Y----, Regina Hotel, Nieuport-Baths." It was dated
Ostend, October, 1914, and read: "Here there is absolute safety. Come
at once. Many kisses! Attila."
Among all this tragedy and desolation here, above all, was the final
comedy. I folded the telegram and placed it in my pocket.
Some weeks later I was dining in Paris at the home of Madame L----,
wife of a professor in the _Conservatoire_; I had as my dinner partner
the great _artiste_, Suzanne Desprès.
[Illustration: Target practice at Sardine Cans, before St. Georges.]
After having told a thousand details of our life in the trenches, some
frightful enough, others sad, the moment had arrived to inject a note
of gaiety into the sombre tableau which I had sketched for them--I drew
forth Attila's telegram.
A cry escaped my partner. "Mlle. Y----, she was one of my company in
the Théâtre de l'OEuvre!"
"And Attila?"
"He is the Director of the Théâtre des Galeries St. Hubert, in Brussels
and well known in Paris!"
* * * * *
Attila's telegram has been safely delivered to Mlle. Y----, who, this
time, will not complain of the remissness of the telegraph company, but
perhaps, of her own indiscretion.
TARGET PRACTICE AT SARDINE CANS, BEFORE ST. GEORGES.
_March_, 1915.
The Marines have found a way to divert German rifle fire from our
loopholes in the trenches.
They have tied a number of empty sardine cans on the ends of sticks
and fixed the latter firmly in the parapet, at which the boches shoot
continually.
Since then "Fritz" spends his spare time in trying to knock them down;
our losses have perceptibly diminished.
MASKED BALL, NIEUPORT-BATHS.
_March_, 1915.