Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/257

 Englishman could change his attitude toward an American than that a jaguar could change his spots. The miracle had come to pass nevertheless.

From Liverpool we went on to London riding in first class compartment coaches as if we owned the railroad. We were in Lunnon, old dear, for a week in which time we paraded, and were dined and petted as if each man-jack of the whole bloomin’ outfit was a, a , a , or some other dandy of a century before. I forgot entirely that a world-war was going on across the Channel and that we were over there to fight monsters of the kind that bayoneted babies, instead of living like dukes.

Then one night we were slipped in darkness from Folkestone across the English Channel to Calais. If the joy of the British in seeing us two thousand strong was great it wasn’t a marker to that of the French who cheered us as we marched through the streets of Paris, and later when the batteries had been dismissed they opened their arms to us—especially the demoiselles. Talk about morale, why I could have licked a dozen boches with my left arm tied