doing a good deal of the smoking for which she gets the credit.

Perhaps I am very old-fashioned, too, when I prefer a preacher who does not smoke; but I do. For the pastor of the church in which I find a family pew, and where I gather my sons and daughters, I continue to select a minister who knows not the weed and on whose breath the aroma of it is not found.

But in London I discovered myself often in the company of clergymen who blew rings with a deftness not acquired in a fortnight. I did not allow my own discomfort to inconvenience my brethren, however. A very distinguished divine blew tobacco smoke into my nose and eyes for an hour after dinner one evening. I suffered nearly as severely as I did later from German gas in France, but I bore the infliction meekly.

Three months before I should have denied that any man could have done for ten seconds what that man did for sixty minutes, and live to tell the story—without a lisp! But we have learned to do and tolerate a great many things since April, 1917, and many of us who refuse to learn to do some things appreciate fully the fact that all who have the greater good at heart, who labor for the things of first and vast importance, must work together.

In London my feet never tired of pressing the streets that led me to the golden shrines of history. I lost myself in Westminster Abbey and in the Tower. I stood upon London Bridge, and hours afterwards found myself humming the old, old chorus, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down." But London Bridge is not falling down. Hear the Tommies marching in the street!

The low buildings of the mighty city are a surprise for the American, even though he has known of them. Not until he has walked for miles and miles by them can he realize that London is a vast community. Always he has associated cities with "sky-scrapers."

That conditions in a war capital are different from those in ordinary cities I quickly discovered when I tried to have my watch repaired. The dealer assured me that he would do his best to have it for me in four weeks! I purchased an Ingersoll; but not in London, for London was sold out! The war has drained the European nations of skilled artisans. They are making other things than watches now.

Paris is swifter on its feet than London, and one does not wait so long for his laundry. There is much politeness visible, too. A Frenchman will spend ten minutes in trying to understand what you mean to impart, simply for the chance of rendering you a service. My first battle on French soil was with a button that I desired to have a tailor sew on my coat while I lunched. Between my finger in my mouth, with which I hoped to reveal to him my gastronomic purposes, and the button in my other hand, with which I pointed to my coat, I was able to convince him at last—that I had swallowed a similar button and was looking for a doctor. He did the best that he could for me—directed me to a druggist!

Paris is exquisite in the little things. She knows and values the amenities of social intercourse as no other city I have ever visited. Even the "cabbies" curse you with infinite politeness.

A striking difference between Paris and any Canadian or American city lies in the fact that even in wartime the former employs so many people that a few modern labor-saving devices would release. While the telephone and the typewriter are used, they are not common. To this day it is impossible to telephone to the Paris Gas Society, an enormous organization with several hundred branches. The company does not wish to be bothered. London is not unlike Paris in this respect. In the metropolis of the British Empire thousands of ministers and professional men and business houses do not have telephones. In Paris when your gas is in trouble you take a day off and "explain." You may finally receive the assurance that the matter will be adjusted sometime within the week. If you grumble, a clerk will smile and say, "C'est la guerre." And of course the war is much to blame for delays, but more telephones would help greatly; typewriters and carbon-paper would be more efficient than cumbersome copying-press machines, and a checkbook would release many a lad and many an elderly gentleman who now walk about paying bills with currency.

But Paris is inspiring in her quiet courage and her unshaken determination. Long-range guns and air raids have left her unbroken. Indeed, they seem to have cured her of the "nerves" she was supposed to have. On the morning after a distressing night of suspense following the loss of more than a hundred lives as the result of bombs, I rode from Paris to Bordeaux. At dinner I sat opposite a very distinguished-looking gentleman. He was quite friendly, and introduced himself; he had been Master of Horse to King George of Greece, was a brigadier-general in the old Grecian army, and was of one of the most ancient families of Montenegro—le Comte de Cernowitz. After the pro-German designs of King Constantine of Greece had become established le Comte de Cernowitz took up his residence in Paris. As he left me, he casually remarked that on the previous night his house had been struck by a bomb, that the roof had been torn off, but that no one had been killed. He was going to Bordeaux to "await the repairs"!

And Paris now is always a city of surprises. Early one Monday morning I found myself drawing into a great station. The night had been a very uncomfortable one. I was in a compartment with a friend—an American captain—and two French officers. The Frenchmen were very polite, but they preferred to have the window closed. The air was very close. I would cautiously open the window, and after an interval our allies would cautiously close it! The compartment was dark, and finally I shoved a corner of my pillow under the sash, and waited. Presently down came the window on the pillow! We had a little breeze for the rest of the night, anyhow.

I had boarded the train at Rennes, and had been surprised at the close inspection the local officers had given my papers. But on alighting at Paris I was even more surprised. French and American soldiers were drawn up on both sides of the platform, and at the gate stood General Pershing and his staff. Six o'clock in the morning is early for a commanding officer to be meeting trains! I waited, and was rewarded by seeing the Secretary of War, Mr. Newton Baker, whose secret journey to Europe and the western front was one of the unusual military features of 1918, leave his car.

Both London and Paris have a regal distinction, a distinction in common. They are the meeting-points for the going and coming armies of democracy. No double-track system is this. As they go, so they return. Here by the Seine and yonder by the Thames these knights of a new era salute each other as they pass. From Canada and Australia, from Scotland and Ireland, and from a dozen other places, some of them as far away as South Africa, the English-speaking soldiers are gathered into the welcoming arms of London and then thrust forth to be scattered along the lines of Flanders and France. And to London they come back—those who do not remain where they fell—to be welcomed tenderly and then dropped into the distant places that have never faded from their eyes in all the days of their bloody pilgrimage.

And to Paris the world sends her best, the black and white and yellow children of the Old World and the New; and Paris smiles upon them through her resplendent tears, and passes them on. Later, by way of her vast treasures of the storied past, they march again to find the track to the open sea and their "own countries."

Once I