At the close of one fair autumn day our car developed tire trouble,
in a village "Somewhere in France," not far from the headquarters
of the American Army. There are four excellent reasons for deleting
the name of the town. First, the censor might not like to have
it printed; second, because the name of the place has escaped my
memory; third, because there is a munition factory there and it
should not be mentioned, and fourth, because even if the name of
the place returned to me, its spelling would get lost in transit.
In passing it should be said in this connection that it seemed
to Henry and me that the one thing France really needed was a
pronounceable language and phonetic spelling. The village where we
stopped really was not a village in the Kansas sense; it was twice
as big as Emporia and nearly half as big as Wichita, which is
70,000. But the thing that made the place seem like a village to
us was the town crier. As we sat in the car he came down the street
beating a snare drum and crying the official news of the sugar
ration; he was telling the people where they could get sugar, how
much they should pay for it and how much they should use for each
member of a family a month.

"Why," asked Henry of an English speaking bystander, "don't you
put that in your daily newspaper; why keep up the old custom?"

"We have no daily newspaper," answered the inhabitant.

"All right, then, is there any reason why the news won't wait for
the weekly?" asked Henry.