the shop or the office every day, or tilled their farms. They were
free; they had their work to occupy their minds during the day and
freedom of movement when they came home in the evening. They
might read the news by their firesides; they were normal human
beings in civilized surroundings.

Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field-
guns, who might walk up and down and play games and go through
the daily drill under their own non-commissioned officers. It was the
mental stagnation of the thing that was appalling. Think of such a lot
for a man used to action in civil life--and they call war action! Think of
a writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to
this fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got
impatient if he had to wait for a train that was late! Shut yourself up in
your own backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty-
four hours and see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison-
camp life can be made comfortable, no matter how many greasy
packs of cards you have. And lousy, besides! At times one had to
laugh over what Mark Twain called "the damfool human race."

Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup-
boilers. Outside was a series of railings, forming stalls for the
prisoners when they lined up for meals. In the morning, some
oatmeal and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with
desiccated meat and some bread; at night, more coffee and bread.
How one thrived on this fare depended much upon how he liked
cabbage soup. The Russians liked it. They were used to it.

"We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs," said a
Frenchman.