Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV Wonderful things happened at Boulogne: twice a year a fair with merry-go-rounds, and fat ladies, and a cow with an arm, and a child with four legs, and Tombolas, and gingerbread, and everything else of horror and delight — of this and of these, later; once a year the Carnival when Christopher himself was allowed to wear a mask — to add for all time (and nothing else, perhaps) the hot cardboardy smell of masks to his enthralling collection of impressions; once a year the festival of Saint Nicolas, the French Santa Claus; and, once for all, the War. Then for a time went everything else to the wall, and Christopher was filled with martial ardour. The town was filled with excitement. Rumour danced to fact. It was to be; it was not to be. Was it to be? It was; and was presently war in being. The "Marseillaise " was in the air. Workmen sang it, clerks, students, schoolboys. Christopher sang it drumming on the panes of the nursery window, and discarded his most treasured toys for soldiers. "Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons —" , "You'll break the window, Master Christopher." But even Trimmer hummed it and went so far upon occasion as to wrestle with the words. " Le jour de glwore est arrivay." The" Marseillaise" for "Rocked in the cradle of the deep"! "Gloire, Trimmer, not glwore." "Glwah," amended Trimmer. "Le jour de glwah." "It isn't quite," said Christopher. "Can't you hear the difference? Listen when I say it: — gloire." But Trimmer had seen it spelt. "Well, it is n't glwore," said Christopher, "and it is n't glow either — yes, you did. You said, Le jour de glaw (it is n't contradictory when you 're teaching a person) — and, besides, ask mother." Mrs. Herrick did not sing it much. It was a revolutionary song, she...