mention champagne to them they would ask for a barrage. I was over to the
Y. M. C. A. hut last night and when I come back I wished you could of seen
my buddys and they was 2 of them that was still able to talk yet and they
was haveing a argument because one of them wanted to pore some champagne in
a dish so as the rats would get stewed and the other bird was trying to not
let him because he said it always made them mean and they would go home and
beat up their Mrs.

It seems like one of the boys had a birthday and his folks is well off and
they had sent him some jack from the states to buy blankets and etc. with
it and he thought it would be a sucker play to load up with bed close when
spring was comeing so he loaded up with something else and some of the boys
with him and for 50 or 60 franks over here you can get enough champagne to
keep the dust layed all summer and of course some of the boys hadn't never
tasted it before and they thought you could bathe in it like beer. They
didn't pay no more tension to revelry this A. M. then if they was a corps
and most of them was at that and out of the whole bunch of us they was only
7 that didn't get reported and the others got soaked 2 thirds of their pay
and confined to their quarters and Capt. Seeley says if they was any more
birthdays in his Co. we wouldn't wind the celebration up till sunrise and
then it would be in front of a fireing squad. Well Al if the boys can't
handle it no better then that they better leave it alone and just because
its cheap that's no reason to try and get it all at once because the grapes
will still be growing over here yet when all us birds takes our teeth off
at night with our other close.

Well Al the reporter that asked me to write up the verses ain't been around
since and probably he has went up to the front or somewheres and I am glad
of it and I hope he forgets all about it because in the first place I am
not one of the kind that is crazy to get in the papers and besides I am to