The "Bureau du Receveur" was open, but there was no one about save the caretaker, who informed us that the "patron" had gone off with all his clerks "to see the English march round the town." We directed our steps towards the swelling sound of pipe-and-drum band, and mingled with the crowd lining the main boulevard which encircles the upper part of the town. P. W. made friends with a French soldier who was in charge of a motor-car which was held up within the barrier formed by the circular manoeuvre of the Brigade. It appeared from what this man said that the citizens of Avesnes had made great preparations to welcome the men, and that they were so disappointed on hearing that the troops were under orders to march farther north that General M., at the Sous-préfet's request, promised to march his men three times round the town. The whole population had turned out to witness the parade, and there did not seem to be much chance of retrieving the Receveur des Impôts from among the enthusiastic cheering mob that swelled around. Our new-found friend, the French soldier, now took us under his wing. He set a number of his friends to hunt down the line, and several civilians joined in the search, among whom was our burly driver, who had got tired of waiting for us at the café. As we were now seated in the motor-car, and had accepted the owner's kind offer to drive us back to St Aubin, we told our fat driver that his services and that of the horse and cart would not be required. Some one then came running up to say that M. le Receveur des Impôts had been found and was now at the Bureau.
The business of changing the French notes was soon carried through, but the English silver could not be changed, as the rate of exchange was a matter on which discussion might have lasted the whole afternoon.
When M.'s Brigade had finished their last lap we in the motor-car were then able to proceed with our commissions. The first stop was at the chemist's. Picton-Warlow stayed in the car. The chemist greeted me as an old friend, and I presently recognised him to be one of the gentlemen who in evening dress had taken part in the reception at the Sous-préfecture. He was now standing at the back of his shop in the middle of a group of stout, middle-aged, and severely respectable-looking citizens, to whom he was telling the story of the day's adventure. After my arrival the conversation came gradually round to a discussion of the Entente Cordiale, and the alliance Franco-Ecossaise, until I felt that a request to purchase tooth-paste would be almost an indiscretion.