The lieutenant who met us at Bar-le-Duc had rushed there in
advance of us, in order to shop with frantic haste. A long list must
have been compiled after "mature deliberation"--as they say in
courts-martial--otherwise any normal young man would have missed out
something. In the tiny, subterranean room (not much larger than a cell)
a stick of incense burned. The cot-bed of some hospitable captain or
major disguised itself as a couch, under a brand-new silk table-cover
with the price-mark still attached, and several small sofa cushions,
also ticketed. A deal table had been painted green and spread with a
lace-edged tea-cloth, on which were proudly displayed a galaxy of
fittings from a dressing-bag, the best, no doubt, that poor bombarded
Bar-le-Duc could produce in war time. There were ivory-backed hair and
clothes brushes; a comb; bottles filled with white face-wash and
perfume; a manicure-set, with pink salve and nail-powder; a tray decked
out with every size of hairpin; a cushion bristling with pins of
many-coloured heads; boxes of rouge, a hare's-foot to put it on with;
face-powder in several tints; swan's-down puffs; black pencils for the
eyebrows and blue for the eyelids; sweet-smelling soap--a dazzling and
heavily fragrant collection.
"Oh, my dear, what _did_ they think of us?" gasped Mother Beckett. "What
a shame the poor lambs should have wasted all their money and trouble!"
"It _mustn't_ be wasted!" said I.
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