M.C.A.--the "_Yimka_," as
the Italians call it--which operates more than 300 _casas_ for the use
of the Italian army. While our host was preparing a dubious-looking
drink from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm water, I amused
myself by glancing over the little stack of records on the table. They
were, of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon three that I knew
well: "_Loch Lomond_," "_Old Folks at Home_" and "_So Long, Letty_." It
was like meeting a party of old friends in a strange land. I tried the
later record, and though it was not very clear, for the captain's supply
of needles had run out and he had been reduced to using ordinary pins,
it was startling to hear Charlotte Greenwood's familiar voice caroling
"_So long, so long, Letty_," there on the borders of Bosnia, with a
picket of curious Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on the
rocky hillside, barely a stone's throw away. Still, come to think about
it, the war produced many contrasts quite as strange, as, for example,
when the New York Irish, the old 69th, crossed the Rhine with the
regimental band playing "_The Sidewalks of New York_."
We touched at Sebenico, which is forty knots down the coast from Zara,
in order to accept an invitation to lunch with Lieutenant-General
Montanari, who commands all the Italian troops in Dalmatia. Now before
we started down the Adriatic we had been warned that, because of
President Wilson's attitude on the Fiume question, the feeling against
Americans ran very high, and that from the Italians we must be prepared
for coldness, if not for actual insults.
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