Our squadron is at the present moment billeted in what the house-agents would describe as a "unique old-world property," a ramshackle pile which looks like a palace from the south and a workhouse from the north.  
It commenced its career, back in the long ago, as a glorified week-end bungalow for Doges. In course of time it became a monastery.
 
When the pious monks took over they got busy with whitewash and obliterated most of the Doges' sportive mural decorations. Most, but not all.
 
Methinks the Abbot had tripped the boulevards in his youth and he spared some of the brighter spots of the more sportive frescoes in memory of old times and to keep his heart up during Lent. Anyhow they are still there.
 
To-day our long-faced chums champ their feeds in cloisters where once the good monks told their beads, and our bold sergeant boys quaff their tonics beneath a painted ceiling whereon Rackham satyrs are depicted chivvying Kirchner nymphs across a Leader landscape.
 
A small portion of one immense wing is inhabited by a refugee lady, who had retired in good order, haling the whole menagerie along with her, calves, fowls, children, donkey, piebald pig and all.
 
When first we came into residence here we heard strange nocturnal swishings and shufflings overhead, where none should be, and attributed them to the ghost of the Abbot, who had returned from Purgatory with a bucket of lime and was striving to wash out his former lapses. Later on we discovered it was the calves, who from inscrutable motives of their own prefer living in the attics. How Mrs. Refugee hoisted them up there in the first place and how she proposes to get them down again when they ripen are questions she alone can answer, but will never do so because we haven't enough Italian to ask her.
 
The piebald pig is supported entirely by voluntary contributions, and, like many other such institutions, keeps frequent fasts. When he retreated here there was no sty to accommodate him; but Mrs. Refugee, with the practical originality that distinguishes her, routed out a retired dog-kennel from somewhere and anchored him to it. This has had the effect of creating in him a dual personality.
 
Sometimes he thinks he is just fat old Dolce F. Niente the pig, and behaves as such, and one can tread all over him without disturbing his melodious slumbers. At others the collar and chain prey on his mind and he imagines he is Patrise Defensor the trusty watch-dog, and mows down all comers.
 
The children and fowls are doing nicely. They speedily discover what innumerable fowls and children all the world over had discovered before them, namely, that the turtling dove is a wild beast compared with the British warrior and his war-horse, and they victimise the defenceless creatures accordingly.
 
The result is that the Atkinses get only what husks of their rations the children have neglected, and the fowls only allow the hairies what oats they cannot possibly stagger away with.
 
Antonio Giuseppe the donkey was also a war profiteer. Commerce might stagnate, armies clash and struggle, nations bleed to death, he did not care. "Viva la guerra!" said Antonio Giuseppe. "As long as there is a British unit handy to dine out with I'm all for it." These sentiments, though deplorable, were not without reason, for until we came I very much doubt if he had ever had a full meal—a real rib-straining blow-out—in his life.
 
He was a miserable little creature, standing about a yard high by six inches broad. By tucking in his tail he could have passed for a rabbit at any fancy-dress ball. His costume was a patch-work affair of hairy tufts and bare spaces. I think he must have been laid away in a drawer without camphor at one time and been mauled by a moth.
 
A disreputable ragamuffin person was Antonio Giuseppe the donkey, but for all that he had a way with him, and was in his day the Light-weight Champion Diner-out of all Italy—probably of the world.
 
At night he reposed in the kitchen along with Mrs. Refugee, the bambini and fowls. The day he spent in his observation post, lurking behind a screen of mulberries and vines, keeping a watchful eye on the horses.
 
As soon as their nosebags were on he commenced to move stealthily towards the lines, timing himself to arrive just as the nosebags came off and the hay-nets went up. H............