endless, dreadful threat. It was getting toward ten o'clock.

"Is this the only room you have? I have never been in this suite."

"No, there is another room. Would you like to see it?"

He followed me into a small chamber from which everything had been
stripped except a bedside table, a chair, and a crayon portrait of a
woman. The picture, slightly tinted with flesh color, was that of a
bourgeoise on the threshold of the fifties, and the still candle-flame
brought out in distinct relief the heavy, obese countenance, the hair
curled in artificial ringlets, and the gold crucifix which she wore on
her large bosom. The Burgundian's attention centered on this picture,
which he examined with the air of a connoisseur of female beauty.

"Lord, how ugly she is!" he exclaimed. "She might well have stayed. Such
an old dragon would have no reason to fear the Boches." And he laughed
heartily from his rich lips and pulled his mustache.

"Don't forget to hurry to the cellar, son," he called as he went away.

At his departure the lonely night closed in on me again. Far, far away
sounded the booming of cannon.

I am a light sleeper, and the arrival of the first shell awakened me.
Kicking off my blankets, I sat up in bed just in time to catch the swift
ebb of a heavy concussion. A piece of glass, dislodged from a broken
pane by the tremor, fell in a treble tinkle to the floor. For a minute
or two there was a full, heavy silence, and then several objects rolled
down the roof and fell over the gutters into the street. It sounded as