IV

I never get past

The jolly old mast,

The skipper and I are quite chummy;

He knows me by sight

When I'm sober or tight

And calls me a "wicked old rummy."

A sort of sweetheart-in-every-port type I intend to make him--a

seafaring man of the old school such as I suppose some of the

six-stripers around here were. I don't imagine it was very difficult

to get a good conduct record in the old days, because from all the

tales I've heard from this source and that, a sailor-man who did not

too openly boast of being a bigamist and who limited his homicidical

inclinations to half a dozen foreigners when on shore leave, was

considered a highly respectable character. Perhaps this is not at all

true and I for one can hardly believe it when I look at the virtuous

and impeccable exteriors of the few remaining representatives with

whom I have come in contact. However, any one has my permission to ask

them if it is true or not, should they care to find out for

themselves. I refuse to be held responsible though. I think I shall

send this poem to the paper soon.

It must be wonderful to get your poems in print. All my friends would

be so proud to know me. I wonder if the editors are well disposed,

God-fearing men.

[Illustration: "LIBERTY PARTY"]

From all I hear they must be a hard lot. Probably they'll be nice to

me because of my connections. I know so many bartenders. Next week I

rate liberty! Ah, little book, I wonder what these pages will contain

when I come back. I hate to think. New York, you know, is such an

interesting place.

_March 25th._ Man! Man! How I suffer! I'm so weary I could sleep on my

company commander's breast, and to bring oneself to that one must be

considerably fatigued, so to speak. Who invented liberty, anyway? It's

a greatly over-rated pastime as far as I can make out, consisting of

coming and going with the middle part omitted.

One man whispered to me at muster this morning that all he could

remember of his liberty was checking out and checking in. He looked

unwell. My old pal, "Spike" Kelly, I hear was also out of luck. His

girl was the skipper of a Fourteenth Street crosstown car, so he was

forced to spend most of his time riding, between the two rivers. He

nickeled himself to death in doing it. He said if Mr. Shonts plays

golf, as no doubt he does, he has "Spike" Kelly to thank for a nice,

new box of golf balls. And while on the subject, "Spike" observes that

one of those engaging car signs should read:

"Is it Gallantry, or the Advent of Woman Suffrage, or the Presence of

the Conductorette that Causes So Many Sailors to Wear Out Their Seats

Riding Back and Forth, and So Many Unnecessary Fares to Be Rung Up in

So Doing?"

His conversation with "Mame," his light-o'-love, was conducted along

this line:

"Say, Mame."

"Yes, George, dear (fare, please, madam). What does tweetums want?"

"You look swell in your new uniform."

"Oh, Georgie, do you think it fits? (Yes, madam, positively, the car

was brushed this morning, your baby will be perfectly safe inside.)"

"Mame."

"George! (Step forward, please.) Go on, dear."

"Mame, it's doggon hard to talk to you here." "Isn't it just! (What

is it lady? Cabbage? Oh, baggage! No, no, you can't check baggage

here; this isn't a regular train.) George, stop holding my hand! I

can't make change!"

"Aw, Mame, who do you love?"

"Why, tweetums, I love--(plenty of room up forward! Don't jam up the

door) you, of course. (Fare, please! Fare, please! Have your change

ready!)"

"Can't we get a moment alone, Mame?"

"Yes, dear; wait until twelve-thirty, and we'll drive to the car barn

then. (Transfers! Transfers!)"

"Spike" says that his liberty was his first actual touch with the

horrors of war.

Another bird that lived in some remote corner of New York State told

me in pitiful tones that all he had time to do was to walk down the

street of his home town, shake hands with the Postmaster, lean over

the fence and kiss his girl (it had to go two ways, Hello and

Good-by), take a package of clean underwear from his mother as he

passed by and catch the outbound train on the dead run. All he could

do was to wave to the seven other inhabitants. He thought the Grand

Central Terminal was a swell dump, though. He said: "There was quite a

lot of it," which is true.

As for myself, I think it best to pass lightly over most of the

incidents of my own personal liberty. The best part of a diary is that

one can show up one's friends to the exclusion of oneself. Anyway, why

put down the happenings of the past forty-three hours? They are

indelibly stamped on my memory. One sight I vividly recall, "Ardy"

Muggins, the multi-son of Muggins who makes the automatic clothes

wranglers. He was sitting in a full-blooded roadster in front of the

Biltmore, and the dear boy was dressed this wise ("Ardy" is a sailor,

too, I forgot to mention): There was a white hat on his head; covering

and completely obliterating his liberty blues was a huge bearskin

coat, which when pulled up disclosed his leggins neatly strapped over

patent leather dancing pumps. It was an astounding sight. One that

filled me with profound emotion.

"Aren't you a trifle out of uniform, Ardy?" I asked him. One has to be

so delicate with Ardy, he's that sensitive. "Why, I thought I might

as well embellish myself a bit," says Ardy.

"You've done all of that," says I, "but for heaven's sake, dear, do

keep away from Fourteenth Street; there are numerous sea-going sailors

down there who might embellish you still further."

"My God!" cries Ardy, striving to crush the wind out of the horn, "I

never slum."

"Don't," says I, passing inside to shake hands with several of my

friends behind the mahogany. Shake hands, alas, was all I did.

_March 26th._ I must speak about the examinations before I forget it.

What a clubby time we had of it. I got in a trifle wrong at the start

on account of my sociable nature. You know, I thought it was a sort of

a farewell reception given by the officers and the C.P.O.'s to the men

departing after their twenty-one days in Probation, so the first thing

I did when I went in was to shake hands with an Ensign, who I thought

was receiving. He got rid of my hand with the same briskness that one

removes a live coal from one's person. The whole proceeding struck me

as being a sort of charity bazaar. People were wandering around from

booth to booth, in a pleasant sociable manner, passing a word here and

sitting down there in the easiest-going way imaginable. Leaving the

Ensign rather abruptly, I attached myself to the throng and started in

search of ice cream and cake. This brought me up at a table where

there was a very pleasant looking C.P.O. holding sway, and with him I

thought I would hold a few words. What was my horror on hearing him

snap out in a very crusty manner:

"How often do you change your socks?"

This is a question I allow no man to ask me. It is particularly

objectionable. "Why, sir," I replied, "don't you think you are

slightly overstepping the bounds of good taste? One does not even jest

about such totally personal matters, ye know." Then rising, I was

about to walk away without even waiting for his reply, but he called

me back and handed me my paper, on which he had written "Impossible"

and underlined it.

The next booth I visited seemed to be a little more hospitable, so I

sat down with the rest of the fellows and prepared to talk of the

events of the past twenty-one days.

"How many Articles are there?" suddenly asked a C.P.O. who hitherto

had escaped my attention.

"Twelve," I replied promptly, thinking I might just as well play the

game, too.

"What are they based on?" he almost hissed, but not quite.

"The Constitution of these United States," I cried in a loud,

public-spirited voice, at which the C.P.O. choked and turned

dangerously red. It seems that not only was I not quite right, but

that I couldn't have been more wrong.

"Go," he gasped, "before I do you some injury." A very peculiar man, I

thought, but, nevertheless, his heart seemed so set on my going that I

thought it would be best for us to part.

"I am sure I do not wish to force myself upon you," I said icily as I

left. The poor man appeared to be on the verge of having a fit.

"Do you want to tie some knots?" asked a kind-voiced P.O. at the next

booth.

"Crazy about it," says I, easy like.

"Then tie some," says he. So I tied a very pretty little knot I had

learned at the kindergarten some years ago and showed it to him.

"What's that?" says he.

"That," replies I coyly. "Why, that is simply a True Lover's knot. Do

you like it?"

"Orderly," he screamed. "Orderly, remove this." And hands were laid

upon me and I was hurled into the arms of a small, but ever so

sea-going appearing chap, who was engaged in balancing his hat on the

bridge of his nose and wig-wagging at the same time. After beating me

over the head several times with the flags, he said I could play with

him, and he began to send me messages with lightning-like rapidity.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Really," I replied, "I lost interest in your message before you

finished."

After this my paper looked like a million dollars with the one knocked

off.

"What's a hackamatack?" asked the next guy. Thinking he was either

kidding me or given to using baby talk, I replied:

"Why, it's a mixture between a thingamabob and a nibleck."

His treatment of me after this answer so unnerved me that I dropped my

gun at the next booth and became completely demoralized. The greatest

disappointment awaited me at "Monkey Drill," or setting up exercises,

however. I thought I was going to kill this. I felt sure I was going

to outstrip all competitors. But in the middle of it all the examiner

yelled out in one of those sarcastic voices that all rookies learn to

fear: "Are you trying to flirt with me or do you think you're a

bloomin' angel?"

This so sickened me at heart that I left the place without further

ado, whatever that might be. Pink teas in the Navy are not unmixed

virtues.

_March 27th._ My birthday, and, oh, how I do miss my cake. It's the

first birthday I ever had without a cake except two and then I had a

bottle. Oh, how well I remember my last party (birthday party)!

There was father and the cake all lit up in the center of the table; I

mean the cake, not father, of course. And there was Gladys (I always

called her "Glad"). She'd been coming to my birthday parties for years

and years. She always came first and left last and ate the most and

got the sickest of all the girls I knew. It was appalling how that

girl could eat.

But, as I was saying, there was father and the cake, and there was

mother and "Glad" and all the little candles were twinkling, lighting

up my presents clustered around, among them being half a dozen maroon

silk socks, a box of striped neck ties, all perfect joys; spats, a

lounging gown, ever so many gloves and the snappiest little cane in

all the world. And what have I around me now? A swab on one side, a

bucket on the other, a broom draped over my shoulder, C.P.O.'s in

front of me, P.O.'s behind me and work all around me--oh, what a

helluvabirthday! I told my company commander last night that the next

day was going to be my birthday, hoping he would do the handsome thing

and let me sleep a little later in the morning, but did he? No, the

Brute, he said I should get up earlier so as to enjoy it longer. As

far as I can find out, the Camp remains totally unmoved by the fact

that I am one year older to-day--and what a hubbub they used to raise

at home. I think the very least they could do up here would be to ask

me to eat with the officers.

_March 28th._ These new barracks over in the main camp are too large;

not nearly so nice as our cosey little bays. I'm really homesick for

Probation and the sound of our old company commander's dulcet voice. I

met Eli on the street to-day and I almost broke down on his neck and

cried. He was the first familiar thing I had seen since I came over to

the main camp.

_March 29th._ This place is just like the Probation Camp, only more

so. Life is one continual lecture trimmed with drills and hikes--oh,

when will I ever be an Ensign, with a cute little Submarine Chaser all

my own?

_April 6th._ The events of the past few days have so unnerved me that

I have fallen behind in my diary. I must try to catch up, for what

would posterity do should the record of my inspiring career in the

service not be faithfully recorded for them to read with reverence and

amazement in days to come?

One of the unfortunate events arose from scraping a too intimate

acquaintance with that horrid old push ball. How did it ever get into

camp anyway, and who ever heard of a ball being so large? It doesn't

seem somehow right to me--out of taste, if you get what I mean. There

is a certain lack of restraint and conservatism about it which all

games played among gentlemen most positively should possess. But the

chap who pushed that great big beast of a push ball violently upon my

unsuspecting nose was certainly no gentleman. Golly, what a resounding

whack! This fellow (I suspect him of being a German spy, basing my

suspicions upon his seeming disposition for atrocities) was standing

by, looking morosely at this small size planet when I blows gently up

and says playfully in my most engaging voice:

"I say, old dear, you push it to me and I'll push it to

you--softly, though, chappy, softly." And with that he flung

himself upon the ball and hurled it full upon my nose, completely

demolishing it. Now I have always been a little partial to my nose. My

eyes, I'll admit, are not quite as soulful as those liquid orbs of

Francis X. Bushman's, but my nose has been frequently admired and

envied in the best drawing rooms in New York. But it won't be envied

any more, I fear--pitied rather.

Of course I played the game no more. I was nauseated by pain and the

sight of blood. My would-be assassin was actually forced to sit down,

he was so weak from brutal laughter. I wonder if I can ever be an

Ensign with a nose like this?

[Illustration: "OF COURSE I PLAYED THE GAME NO MORE"]

_April 7th._ On the way back from a little outing the other day my

companion, Tim, who in civil life had been a barkeeper and a good one

at that, ingratiated himself in the good graces of a passing

automobile party and we consequently were asked in. There were two

girls, sisters, I fancy, and a father and mother aboard.

"And where do you come from, young gentlemen?" asked the old man.

"Me pal comes from San Diego," pipes up my unscrupulous friend, "and

my home town is San Francisco."

I knew for a fact that he had never been farther from home than the

Polo Grounds, and as for me I had only the sketchiest idea of where my

home town was supposed to be.

"Ah, Westerners!" exclaimed the old lady. "I come from the West

myself. My family goes back there every year."

"Yes," chimed in the girls, "we just love San Diego!"

"In what section of the town did you live?" asked the gentleman, and

my friend whom I was inwardly cursing, seeing my perplexity, quickly

put in for me:

"Oh, you would never know it, sir," and then lowering his voice in a

confidential way, he added, "he kept a barroom in the Mexican part of

the town."

"A barroom!" exclaimed the old lady. "Fancy that!" She looked at me

with great, innocent interest.

"Yes," continued this lost soul, "my father, who is a State senator,

sent him to boarding school and tried to do everything for him, but he

drifted back into the old life just as soon as he could. It gets a hold

on them, you know."

"Yes, I know," said the old lady, sadly, "my cook had a son that went

the same way."

"He isn't really vicious, though," added my false friend with feigned

loyalty--"merely reckless."

"Well, my poor boy," put in the old gentleman with cheery

consideration, "I am sure you must find that navy life does you a

world of good--regular hours, temperate living and all that."

"Right you are, sport," says I bitterly, assuming my enforced role, "I

haven't slit a Greaser's throat since I enlisted."

"We must all make sacrifices these days," sighed the old lady.

"And perhaps you will be able to exercise your--er--er rather robust

inclinations on the Germans when you meet them on the high seas,"

remarked the old man, who evidently thought to comfort me.

"If I can only keep him out of the brig," said this low-down friend of

mine, "I think they might make a first-rate mess hand out of him," at

which remark both of the girls, who up to this moment had been

studying me silently, exploded into loud peals of mirth and then I

knew where I had met them before--at Kitty Van Tassel's coming out

party, and I distinctly recalled having spilled some punch on the

prettier one's white satin slipper.

"We get out here," I said, hoarsely, choking with rage.

"But!" exclaimed the old lady, "it's the loneliest part of the road."

"However that may be," I replied with fine firmness, "I must

nevertheless alight here. I have a great many things to do before I

return to camp and lonely roads are well suited to my purposes. My

homicidal leanings are completely over-powering me."

"Watch him closely," said the old lady to my companion, as the car

came to a stop.

"He will have to," I replied grimly, as I prepared to alight.

"Perhaps Mr. Oswald will mix us a cocktail some day," said one of the

sisters, leaning over the side of the car. "I have heard that he

supported many bars at one time, but I never knew he really owned

one."

"What," I heard the old lady exclaiming as the car pulled away, "he

really isn't a bartender at all--well, fancy that!"

There were a couple of pairs of rather dusty liberty blues in camp

that night.

_April 8th._ Yesterday mother paid a visit to camp and insisted upon

me breaking out my hammock in order for her to see if I had covers

enough.

"I can never permit you to sleep in that, my dear," she said after

pounding and prodding it for a few numbers; "never--and I am sure the

Commander will agree with me after I have explained to him how

delicate you have always been."

Later in the afternoon she became a trifle mollified when I told her

that the master-at-arms came around every night and distributed extra

blankets to every one that felt cold. "Be sure to see that he gives

you enough coverings," she said severely, "or else put him on report,"

which I faithfully promised to do.

She was greatly delighted with the Y.M.C.A. and the Hostess Committee.

Here I stood her up for several bricks of ice cream and a large

quantity of cake. My fourth attempt she refused, however, saying by

way of explanation to a very pretty girl standing by, "It wouldn't be

good for him, my dear; my son has always had such a weak stomach. The

least little thing upsets him."

[Illustration: "SHE WAS GREATLY DELIGHTED WITH THE Y.M.C.A."]

"I believe you," replied the young lady, sympathetically, as she gazed

at me. I certainly looked upset at the moment. This was worse than the

underwear.

"So that's an Ensign!" she exclaimed later in an obviously

disappointed tone of voice; "well, I'm not so sure that I want you to

become one now." The passing ensign couldn't help but hear her, as she

had practically screamed in his ear. He turned and studied my face

carefully. I think he was making sure that he could remember it.

"Now take me to your physician," commanded mother, resolutely. "I want

to be sure that he sees that you take your spring tonic regularly."

"Mother," I pleaded, "don't you think it is time you were going? I

have a private lesson in sale embroidery in ten minutes that I

wouldn't miss for the world--the sweetest man teaches it!"

"Well, under the circumstances I won't keep you," said mother, "but

I'll write to the doctor just the same."

"Yes, do," I urged, "send it care of me so that he'll be sure to get

it."

Mother is not a restful creature in camp.

_April 9th._ "Say, there, you with the nose," cried my P.O. company

commander to-day, "are you with us or are you playing a little game of

your own?"

I wasn't so very wrong--just the slight difference between port and

present arms.

"With you, heart and soul," I replied, hoping to make a favorable

impression by a smart retort.

"That don't work in the manual," he replied; "use your brain and

ears."

Unnecessarily rough he was, but I don't know but what he wasn't right.

[Illustration: "I WASN'T SO VERY WRONG--JUST THE SLIGHT DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN PORT AND PRESENT ARMS"]

_April 10th._ I hear that I am going to be put on the mess crew. God

pity me, poor wretch! How shall I ever keep my hands from becoming

red? What a terrible war it is!

_April 11th._ Saw a basket ball game the other night. Never knew it

was so rough. I used to play it with the girls and we had such sport.

There seemed to be some reason for it then. There are a couple of

queer looking brothers on our team who seem to try utterly to demolish

their opponents. They remind me of a couple of tough gentlemen from

Scranton I heard about in a story once.

_April 12th._ The price of fags (gee! I'm getting rough) has gone up

again. This war is rapidly cramping my style.

_April 14th._ I have been too sick at heart to write up my diary--Eli

is dead! "Pop," the Jimmy-legs, found the body and has been promoted

to Chief Master-at-arms. It's an ill wind that blows no good. I

don't know whether it was because he found Eli or because he runs one

of the most modernly managed mess halls in camp or because his working

parties are always well attended that "Pop" received his appointment,

but whatever it was it does my heart good to see a real seagoing old

salt, one of our few remaining ex-apprentice boys, receive recognition

that is so well merited. However, I was on much more intimate terms

with Eli when I was over in Probation Camp than I was with "Pop." He

almost had me in his clutches once for late hammocks, me and eight

other poor victims I had led into the trouble, and he had our

wheelbarrows all picked out for us, and a nice large pile of sand for

us to play with when fate interceded in our behalf. The poor man

nearly cried out of sheer anguish of soul, and I can't justly blame

him. It's hard lines to have a nice fat extra duty party go dead on

your hands.

But with Eli it was different. When I was a homeless rookie he took me

in and I fed him--cigarette butts--and I'll honestly say that he

showed more genuine appreciation than many a flapper I have plied with

costly viands. He was a good goat, Eli. Not a refined goat, to be

sure, but a good, honest, whole-souled goat just the same. He did his

share in policing the grounds, never shirked a cigar end or a bit of

paper and amused many a mess gear line. He was loyal to his friends,

tolerant with new recruits and a credit to the service in general.

Considering the environment in which he lived, I think he deported

himself with much dignity and moderation. I for one shall miss Eli.

Some of the happier memories of my rookie days die with him. He is

survived by numerous dogs.

_April 25th._ Yesterday I wandered around Probation Camp in a very

patronizing manner and finally stopped to shed a tear on the humble

grave of Eli.

"Poor sinful goat," I thought sadly, "here you lie at last in your

final resting place, but your phantom, I wonder, does it go coursing

madly down the Milky Way, butting the stars aside with its

battle-scarred head and sending swift gleams of light through the

heavens as its hoofs strike against an upturned planet? Your horns,

are they tipped with fire and your beard gloriously aflame, or has the

great evil spirit of Wayward Goats descended upon you and borne you

away to a place where there is never anything to butt save

unsatisfactorily yielding walls of padded cotton? Many changes have

taken place, Eli, since you were with us, much adversity has befallen

me, but the world in the large is very much the same. Bill and Mike

have been shipped to sea and strange enough to say, old Spike Kelly

has made the Quartermasters School. I alone of all the gang remain

unspoken for--nobody seems anxious to avail themselves of my services.

My tapes are dirtier and my white hat grows less "sea-going" every day

and even you, Eli, are being forgotten. The company commander still

carols sweetly in the morning about "barrackses" and fire

"distinguishers," rookies still continue to rook about the camp in

their timid, mild-eyed way, while week-old sailors with unwashed

leggins delight their simple souls with cries of 'twenty-one days.'

New goats have sprung up to take your place in the life of the camp

and belittle your past achievements, but to me, O unregenerate goat,

you shall ever remain a refreshing memory. Good butting, O excellent

ruminant, wherever thou should chance to be. I salute you."

This soliloquy brought me to the verge of an emotional break-down. I

departed the spot in silence. On my way back through Probation I

chanced upon a group of rookies studying for their examinations and

was surprised to remember how much I had contrived to forget.

Nevertheless I stopped one of the students and asked him what a

"hakamaback" was and found to my relief that he didn't know.

"Back to your manual," said I gloomily, "I fear you will never be a

sailor."

Having thus made heavy the heart of another, I continued on my way

feeling somehow greatly cheered only to find upon entering my barracks

that my blankets were in the lucky bag. How did I ever forget to place

them in my hammock? It was a natural omission though, I fancy, for the

master-at-arms so terrifies me in the morning with his great shouts of

"Hit the deck, sailor! Shake a leg--rise an' shine" that I am unnerved

for the remainder of the day.

_April 29th._ Life seems to be composed of just one parade after

another. I am weary of the plaudits and acclamation of the multitude

and long for some sequestered spot on a mountain peak in Thibet. Every

time I see a street I instinctively start to walk down the middle of

it. Last week I was one of the many thousands of Pelham men who

marched along Fifth Avenue in the Liberty Loan parade. I thought I was

doing particularly well and would have made a perfect score if one of

my leggins hadn't come off right in front of the reviewing stand much

to the annoyance of the guy behind me because he tripped on it and

almost dropped his gun. For the remainder of the parade I was

subjected to a running fire of abuse that fairly made my flesh crawl.

At the end of the march I ran into a rather nebulous, middle-aged sort

of a gentleman soldier who was sitting on the curb looking moodily at

a manhole as if he would like to jump in it.

"Hello, stranger," says I in a blustery, seafaring voice, "you look as

if you'd been cursed at about as much as I have. What sort of an

outfit do you belong to?"

He scrutinized one of his buttons with great care and then told me all

about himself.

"I'm a home guard, you know," he added bitterly, "all we do is to

escort people. I've escorted the Blue Devils, the Poilus, the

Australians, mothers of enlisted men, mothers of men who would have

enlisted if they could, Boy Scouts and loan workers until my dogs are

jolly well near broken down on me. Golly, I wish I was young enough to

enjoy a quiet night's sleep in the trenches for a change."

Later I saw him gloomily surveying the world from the window of a

passing cab. He was evidently through for the time being at least.

_April 30th._ I took my bar-keeping pal home over the last week-end

liberty. It was a mistake. He admits it himself. Mother will never

have him in the house again. Mother could never get him in the house

again. He fears her. The first thing he did was to mix poor dear

grandfather a drink that caused the old gentleman to forget his game

leg which had been damaged in battles, ranging anywhere from the

Mexican to the Spanish wars, according to grandfather's mood at the

time he is telling the story, but which I believe, according to a

private theory of mine, was really caught in a folding bed. However it

was, grandfather forgot all about this leg of his entirely and

insisted on dancing with Nora, our new maid. Mother, of course, was

horrified. But not content with that, this friend of mine concocted

some strange beverage for the pater which so delighted him that he

loaned my so-called pal the ten spot I had been intending to borrow.

The three of them sat up until all hours of the night playing cards

and telling ribald stories. As mother took me upstairs to bed she

gazed down on her father-in-law and her husband in the clutches of

this demon and remarked bitterly to me:

"Like father, like son," and I knew that she was thoroughly determined

to make both of them pay dearly for their pleasant interlude.

Breakfast the next morning was a rather trying ordeal. Grandfather

once more resorted to his game leg with renewed vigor, referring

several times to the defense of the Alamo, so I knew he was pretty low

in his mind. Father withdrew at the sight of bacon. Mother laughed

scornfully as he departed. My friend ate a hearty breakfast and kept a

sort of a happy-go-lucky monologue throughout its entire course. I

took him out walking afterward and forgot to bring him back.

[Illustration: "THE FIRST THING HE DID WAS TO MIX POOR DEAR

GRANDFATHER A DRINK"]

_April 31st._ Have just come off guard duty and feel quite exhausted.

The guns are altogether too heavy. I can think of about five different

things I could remove from them without greatly decreasing their

utility. The first would be the barrel. The artist who drew the

picture in the last camp paper of Dawn appearing in the form of a

beautiful woman must have had more luck than I have ever had. I think

he would have been closer to the truth if he had put her in a speeding

automobile on its way home from a road house. It surely is a proof of

discipline to hear the mocking, silver-toned laughter of women ring

out in the night only ten feet away and not drop your gun and follow

it right through the barbed wire. After the war, I am going to buy

lots of barbed wire and cut it up into little bits just to relieve my

feelings.

Last night I had the fright of my life. Some one was fooling around

the fence in the darkness.

"Who's there?" I cried.

"Why, I'm Kaiser William," came the answer in a subdued voice.

"Well, I wish you'd go away, Kaiser William," said I nervously,

"you're busting the lights out of rule number six."

"What's that?" asks the voice.

"Not to commit a nuisance with any one except in a military manner," I

replied, becoming slightly involved.

"That's not such a wonderful rule," came back the voice in complaining

tones. "I could make up a rule better than that."

"Don't try to to-night," I pleaded.

There was silence for a moment, then the voice continued seriously,

"Say, I'm not Kaiser William really. Honest I'm not."

"Well, who are you?" I asked impatiently.

"Why, I'm Tucks," the voice replied. "Folks call me that because I

take so many of them in my trousers."

"Well, Tucks," I replied, "you'd better be moving on. I don't know

what might happen with this gun. I'm tempted to shoot the cartridge

out of it just to make it lighter."

"Oh, you can't shoot me," cried Tucks, "I'm crazy. I bet you didn't

know that, did you?"

"I wasn't sure," I answered.

"Oh, I'm awfully crazy," continued Tucks, "everybody says so, and I

look it, too, in the daylight."

"You must," I replied.

"Well, good night," said Tucks in the same subdued voice. "If you find

a flock of pink Liberty Bonds around here, remember I lost them." He

departed in the direction of City Island.

[Illustration: "I WAS TEMPTED TO SHOOT THE CARTRIDGE OUT JUST TO MAKE

IT LIGHTER"]

_May 1st._ I visited the office of the camp paper to-day and found it

to be an extremely hectic place. In the course of a conversation with

the Chief I chanced to look up and caught two shining eyes staring

malevolently at me from a darkened corner of the room. This creature

blinked at me several times very rapidly, wiggled its mustache and

suddenly disappeared into the thick shadows.

"Who is that?" I cried, startled.

"That's our mad photographer," said the Chief. "What do you think of

him?"

"Do you keep him in there?" I asked, pointing to the coal-black

cupboard-like room into which this strange creature had disappeared.

"Yes," said the Chief, "and he likes it. Often he stays there for days

at a time, only coming out for air." At this juncture there came from

the dark room the sounds of breaking glass, which was immediately

followed by strange animal-like sounds as the mad photographer burst

out of his den and proclaimed to all the world that nothing meant very

much in his life and that it would be absolutely immaterial to him if

the paper and its entire staff should suddenly be visited with flood,

fire and famine. After this gracious and purely gratuitous piece of

information he again withdrew, but strange mutterings still continued

to issue forth from his lair. While I was sitting in the office the

editor happened to drift in from the adjacent room crisply attired in

a pair of ragged, disreputable trousers and a sleeveless gray sweater

which was raveling in numerous places. It was the shock of my life.

"Where's our yeoman?" he grumbled, at which the yeoman, who somehow

reminded me of some character from one of Dickens's novels, edged out

of the door, but he was too late. Spying him, the editor launched

forth on a violent denunciation, in which for no particular reason the

cartoonist and sporting editor joined. There they stood, the three of

them, abusing this poor simple yeoman in the most unnecessary manner

as far as I could make out. Three harder cut-throats I have never

encountered. While in the office, I came upon a rather elderly artist

crouched over in a corner writhing as if he was in great pain. He was

in the throes of composition, I was told, and he looked it. Poor

wretch, he seemed to have something on his mind. The only man I saw

who seemed to have anything like a balanced mind was the financial

shark, a little ferret-eyed, onery-looking cuss whom I wouldn't have

trusted out of my sight. He was sitting with his nose thrust in some

dusty volume totally oblivious of the pandemonium that reigned around

him. He either has a great mind or none at all--probably the latter. I

fear I would never make an editor. The atmosphere is simply

altogether too strenuous for me.

_May 4th._ There seems to be no place in the service for me; I cannot

decide what rating to select. To be a quartermaster one must know how

to signal, and signaling always tires my arms. One must know how to

blow a horrid shrill little whistle in order to become a boatswain

mate, and my ears could never stand this. To be a yeoman, it is

necessary to know how to rattle papers in an important manner and

disseminate misinformation with a straight face, and this I could

never do. I fear the only thing left for me is to try for a

commission. I'm sure I would be a valuable addition to any wardroom.

_May 6th._ "Man the drags! Hey, there, you flannel-footed camel, stop

galloping! What are you doing, anyway--playing horses?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I cried out, hot with rage and humiliation;

"you know perfectly well I'm not playing horse. I realize as well as

you do that this is a serious--"

At this juncture of my brave retort a gun barrel stove in the back of

my head, some one kicked me on the shin and in some indescribable

manner the butt of a rifle became entangled between my feet, and down

I went in a cloud of dust and oaths. One-fourth of the entire Pelham

field artillery passed over my body, together with its crew, while

through the roar and confusion raised by this horrible cataclysm I

could hear innumerable C.P.O.'s howling and blackguarding me in

frenzied tones, and I dimly distinguished their forms dancing in rage

amid descending billows of dust. The parade ground swirled dizzily

around me, but I had no desire to arise and begin life anew. It would

not be worth while. I felt that I had at the most only a short time to

live, and that that was too long. The world offered nothing but the

most horrifying possibilities to me. "What is the Biltmore to a man in

uniform, anyway?" I remember thinking to myself as I lay there with my

nose pressed flat to an ant hill, "all the best parts of it are arid

districts, waste places, limitless Saharas to him. Death, where is thy

sting?" I continued, as an outraged ant assaulted my nose. The world

came throbbing back. I felt myself being dragged violently away from

my resting place. I was choking. Bidding farewell to the ants, I

prepared myself to swoon when gradually, as if from a great distance,

I heard the voice of my P.O. He was almost crying.

"Take him out," he pleaded; "for Gord sake, take him out. He's hurtin'

our gun."

[Illustration: "ONE FOURTH OF THE ENTIRE PELHAM FIELD ARTILLERY PASSED

OVER MY BODY"]

This remark gave me the strength to rise, but not gracefully. My

intention was to address a few handpicked words to this P.O. of mine,

but fortunately for my future peace of mind I was beyond utterance.

Weakly I tottered in the direction of the gun, hoping to support

myself upon it.

"Hey, come away from that gun!" howled the P.O. "Don't let him touch

it, fellers," he pleaded. "Don't let him even go near it. He'll spoil

it. He'll completely destroy it."

"Say, Buddy," said the Chief to me, and how I hated the ignominy of

the word, "I guess I'll take you out of the game for to-day. I'm

responsible for Government property, and you are altogether too big a

risk."

"What shall I do?" I asked, huskily. "Where shall I go?"

"Do?" he repeated, in a thoughtful voice. "Go? Well, here's where you

can go," and he told me, "and this is what you can do when you get

there," and as I departed rather hastily he told me this also. The

entire parade ground heard him. How shall I ever be able to hold up my

head again in Camp? I departed the spot, but only under one boiler;

however, I made fair speed. Like a soldier returning from a week in

the trenches, I sought the comfort and seclusion of the Y.M.C.A. Here

I witnessed a checker contest of a low order between two unscrupulous

brothers. They had a peculiar technique completely their own. It

consisted of arts and dodges and an extravagant use of those

adjectives one is commonly supposed to shun.

"Say, there's a queen down at the end of the room," one of them would

suddenly exclaim, and while the other brother was gazing eagerly in

that direction he would deliberately remove several of his men from

the board. But the other brother, who was not so balmy as he

looked, would occasionally discover this slight irregularity and

proceed to express his opinion of it by word of mouth, which for sheer

force of expression was in the nature of a revelation to me. It was

appalling to sit there and watch those two young men, who had

evidently at one time come from a good home, sit in God's bright

sunshine and cheat each other throughout the course of an afternoon

and lie out of it in the most obvious manner. The game was finally

discontinued, owing to a shortage of checkermen which they had

secreted in their pockets, a fact which each one stoutly denied with

many weird and rather indelicate vows. I left them engaged in the

pleasant game of recrimination, which had to do with stolen golf

balls, the holding out of change and kindred sordid subjects. In my

weakened condition this display of fraternal depravity so offended my

instinctive sense of honor that I was forced to retire behind the

protecting pages of a 1913 issue of "The Farmer's Wife Indispensable

Companion," where I managed to lose myself for the time in a rather

complicated exposition of how to tell which chicken laid what egg if

any or something to that effect, an article that utterly demolished

the moral character of the average hen, leaving her hardly a leg to

roost on.

_May 8th._ "Give away," said the coxswain to-day, when we were

struggling to get our cutter off from the pier, and I gave away to

such an extent, in fact, that I suddenly found myself balanced

cleverly on the back of my neck in the bottom of the boat, so that I

experienced the rather odd sensation of feeling the hot sun on the

soles of my feet. This procedure, of course, did not go unnoticed.

Nothing I do goes unnoticed, save the good things. The coxswain made a

few comments which showed him to be a thoroughly ill-bred person, but

further than this I was not persecuted. After we had rowed

interminable distances through leagues upon leagues of doggedly

resisting water a man in the bow remarked casually that he had several

friends in Florida we might call upon if we kept it up a little

longer, but the coxswain comfortably ensconced upon the hackamatack,

was so deeply engrossed in the perusal of a vest pocket edition of the

"Merchant of Venice" that he failed to grasp the full meaning of the

remark. I lifted my rapidly glazing eyes with no little effort from

the keelson and discovered to my horror that we had hardly passed more

than half a mile of shore-line at the most. What we had been doing all

the time I was unable to figure out. I thought we had been rowing. I

could have sworn we had been rowing, but apparently we had not. I

looked up from my meditation in time to catch the ironical gaze of the

coxswain upon me, and I involuntarily braced myself to the assault.

[Illustration: "THE PROCEDURE, OF COURSE, DID NOT GO UNNOTICED"]

"Say, there, sailor," said he, with a slow, unpleasant drawl, "you're

not rowing; you're weaving. It's fancy work you're doing, blast yer

eyes!"

All who had sufficient strength left in them laughed jeeringly at this

wise observation, but I retained a dignified silence--that is, so far

as a man panting from exhaustion can be silent. At this moment we

passed a small boat being rowed briskly along by a not unattractive

girl.

"Now, watch her," said the coxswain, helpfully, to me; "study the way

that poor fragile girl, that mere child, pulls the oars, and try to do

likewise."

I observed in shamed silence. My hands ached. A motor boat slid

swiftly by and I distinctly saw a man drinking beer from the bottle.

"Hell isn't dark and smoky," thought I to myself; "hell is bright and

sunny, and there is lots of sparkling water in it and on the sparkling

water are innumerable boats and in these boats are huddled the poor

lost mortals who are forced to listen through eternity to the wise

cracks of cloven-hoofed, spike-tailed coxswains. That's what hell is,"

thought I, "and I am in my probation period right now."

"Feather your oars!" suddenly screamed our master at the straining

crew.

"Feather me eye!" yelled back a courageous Irishman. "What do you

think these oars are, anyway--a flock of humming birds? Whoever heard

of feathering a hundred-ton weight? Feather Pike's Peak, say I; it's

just as easy."

Somehow we got back to the pier, but I was almost delirious by this

time. The last part of the trip was all one drab, dull nightmare to

me. This evening my hands were so swollen I was forced to the

extremity of bribing a friend to hold the telephone receiver for me

when I called up mother.

"What have you been doing?" she asked.

"Rowing," came my short answer.

"What a splendid outing!" she exclaimed. "You had such a lovely day

for it, didn't you, dear?"

"Hang up that receiver!" I shouted to my friend; "hang it up, or my

mother shall hear from the lips of her son words she should only hear

from her husband."

_May 9th._ I am just after having been killed in a sham battle, and so

consequently I feel rather ghastly to-day. I don't exactly know

whether I was a Red or a Blue, because I did a deal of fighting on

both sides, but always with the same result. I was killed instantly

and completely. People got sick of putting me out of my misery after a

while and I was allowed to wander around at large in a state of great

mystification and excitement, shooting my blank bullets into the face

of nature in an aimless sort of manner whenever the battle began to

pall upon me.

Most of the time I passed pleasantly on the soft, fresh flank of a

hill where for a while I slept until a cow breathed heavily in my face

and reminded me that it was war after all. My instructions were to

keep away from the guns, and get killed as soon as possible. As these

instructions were not difficult to follow, I carried them out to the

letter. I stayed away from the guns and I permitted myself to be

killed several times in order to make sure it would take. After that I

became a sort of composite camp follower, deserter and straggler.

In my wandering I chanced upon an ancient enemy of many past

encounters.

"Are you Red or Blue?" I asked, preparing to die for the fifth time.

"No," he answered, sarcastically, "I'm what you might call elephant

ear gray."

"Are you the guy the reporter for the camp paper was referring to in

his last story?" I asked him.

"Yes," he replied, "the slandering blackguard."

"You hit me on the nose with a push-ball," said I.

"I'll do it again," said he.

"That reporter, evidently a man of some observation, said you didn't

wash your neck and that you had the habits of a camel."

"But I do wash my neck," he said, stubbornly, "and I don't know

anything about the habits of a camel, but whatever they might happen

to be, I haven't got 'em."

"Yes," I replied, as if to myself, "you certainly should wash your

neck. That's the very least you could do."

"But I tell you," he cried, desperately, "I keep telling you that I do

wash my neck. Why do you go on talking about it as if I didn't! I tell

you now, once for all time, that I do wash my neck, and that ends it.

Don't talk any more. I want to think."

We sat in silence for a space, then I remarked casually, almost

inaudibly, "and you certainly shouldn't have the habits of a camel."

The depraved creature stirred uneasily. "I ain't got 'em," he said.

"Good," I cried heartily. "We understand each other perfectly. In the

future you will try to wash your neck and cease from having the habits

of a camel. No compromise is necessary. I know you will keep your

word."

"Go away quickly," he gasped, searching around for a stone to hurl at

me, and discarding several because of their small size. "Go away to

somewhere else. I'm telling you now, go away or else a special detail

will find your lifeless body here in the bushes some time to-morrow."

"I've already been thoroughly killed several times to-day," I said,

putting a tree between us, "but don't forget about the camel, and for

heaven's sake do try to keep your neck--"

A stone hit the tree with a resounding crack, and I increased the

distance.

"Damn the torpedoes!" I shouted back as I disappeared into the

pleasant security of the sun-warmed woods.

_May 11th._ "What navy do you belong to?" asked an Ensign, stopping me

to-day, "the Chinese?"

"Why do you ask, sir?" I replied, saluting gracefully. "Of course I

don't belong to the Chinese Navy."

"What's your rating?" he snapped. "Show girl first class attached to

the good ship Biff! Bang! sir," came my prompt retort.

"Well, put a watch mark on your arm, sailor, and put it there pronto,

or you'll be needing an understudy to pinch hit for you."

As a matter of fact I have never put my watch mark on, for the simple

reason that I have been rather expecting a rating at any moment, but

it seems as if my expectations were doomed to disappointment.

Nothing matters much, anyway, now, however, for I have been selected

from among all the men in the station to play the part of a Show Girl

in the coming magnificent Pelham production, "Biff! Bang!" At last I

have found the occupation to which by training and inclination I am

naturally adapted. The Grand Moguls that are running this show came

around the barracks the other day looking for material, and when they

gazed upon me I felt sure that their search had not been in vain.

"Why don't you write a 'nut' part for him?" asked one of them of the

playwright as they surveyed me critically as if I was some rare

specimen of bug life.

"That would never do," he answered. "Real 'nuts' can never play the

part on the stage. You've got to have a man of intelligence."

"Look here," I broke in. "You've got to stop talking about me before

my face as if I wasn't really present. Nuts I may be, but I can still

understand English, even when badly spoken, and resent it. Lay off

that stuff or I'll be constrained to introduce you to a new brand of

'Biff! Bang!'"

Saying this, I struck an heroic attitude, but it seemed to produce no

startling change in their calm, deliberate examination of me.

"He'll do, I think, as a Show Girl," the dance-master mused dreamily.

"Like a cabbage, every one of his features is bad, but the whole

effect is not revolting. Strange, isn't it, how such things happen."

At this point the musician broke in.

"He ain't agoing to dance to my music if I know it. He'll ruin it." At

which remark I executed a few rather simple but nevertheless neat

steps I had learned at the last charity Bazaar to which I had

contributed my services, and these few steps were sufficient to close

the deal. I was signed up on the spot. As they were leaving the

barracks one excited young person ran up and halted the arrogant

Thespians. "If I get the doctor to remove my Adam's Apple," he pleaded

wistfully, "do you think you could take me on as a pony?"

"No," said one of them, not without a certain show of kindness. "I

fear not. It would be necessary for him to remove the greater part of

your map and graft a couple of pounds on to your sadly unendowed

limbs."

From that day on my life has become one of unremitting toil. Together

with the rest of the Show Girls I vamp and slouch my way around the

clock with ever increasing seductiveness. We are really doing

splendidly. The ponies come leaping lightly across the floor waving

their freckled, muscular arms from side to side and looking very

unattractive indeed in their B.V.D.'s, high shoes and sock supporters.

"I can see it all," says the Director, in an enthusiastic voice, and

if he can I'll admit he has some robust quality of imagination that I

fail to possess.

Us Show Girls, of course, have to be a little more modest than the

ponies, so we retain our white trousers. These are rolled up, however,

in order to afford the mosquitoes, who are covering the show most

conscientiously, room to roost on. And sad to relate, the life is

beginning to affect the boys. Only yesterday I saw one of our toughest

ponies vamping up the aisle of Mess Hall No. 2 with his tray held over

his head in the manner of a Persian slave girl. The Jimmy-legs,

witnessing this strange sight, dropped his jaw and forgot to lift it

up again. "Sweet attar of roses," he muttered. "What ever has happened

to our poor, long-suffering navy?" At the door of the Mess Hall the

pony bowed low to the deck and withdrew with a coy backward flirt of

his foot.

I can't express in words the remarkable appearance made by some of our

seagoing chorus girls when they attempt to assume the light and airy

graces of the real article. Some of the men have so deeply entered

into their parts that they have attained absolute self-forgetfulness,

with the result that they leap and preen about in a manner quite

startling to the dispassionate spectator. My career so far has not

been a personal triumph. In the middle of a number, the other night,

the dancing master clapped his hands violently together, a signal he

uses when he wants all motion to cease.

"Take 'em down to the end of the room, boys," he said. "I can tell

three minutes ahead of time when things are going to go wrong. That

man on the end didn't have a thought in his head. He would have

smeared the entire number." I was the man on the end.

_May 23d._ This has not been a particularly agreeable day, although to

a woman no doubt it would have been laden with moments of exquisite

ecstasy. Feminine apparel for me has lost for ever the charm of

mystery that formerly touched it with enchantment. There is nothing I

do not know now. Its innermost secret has been revealed and its

revelation has brought with it its full burden of woe. All knowledge

is pain and vice versa. I have always admired women; whether so

profoundly as they have admired me I know not; however that may be, I

have always admired them collectively and individually in the past,

but after today's experience my admiration is tinged with pity. The

source of these reflections lies in no less an article than a corset.

As a Show Girl, it has been my lot to be provided with one of these

fiendish devices of medieval days. It is too much. The corset must go.

No woman could have experienced the pain and discomfort I have been

subjected to this day without feeling entitled to the vote. Yet I dare

say there are women who would gladly be poured into a new corset every

day of their lives. They can have mine for the asking. Life at its

best presents a narrow enough outlook without resorting to cunningly

wrought devices such as corsets in order further to confine one's

point of view or abdomen, which amounts to the same thing. The whale

is a noble animal, it was a very good idea, the whale, and I love

every bone in its body, so long as it keeps them there. So tightly was

my body clutched in the embrace of this vicious contraption that I

found it impossible to inhale my much needed cigarette. The smoke

would descend no further than my throat. The rest of me was a closed

port, a roadway blocked to traffic. I have suffered.

But there were also other devices, other soft, seductive under

strappings. I know them all to their last most intimate detail. I

feel that now I could join a woman's sewing circle and talk with as

much authority and wisdom as the most veteraned corset wearer present.

My views would be radical perhaps but at least they would have the

virtue of being refreshing.

However, I can see some good coming out of my unavoidably acquired

knowledge of female attire. In future days, while my wife is out

purchasing shirts and neckties for me, I can easily employ my time to

advantage in shopping around Fifth Avenue in search of the correct

thing in lingerie for her. It will be a great help to the household

and I am sure impress my wife with the depth and range of my

education, which I will be able to tell her, thank God, was innocently

acquired.

_May 28th._ I am slowly forming back into my pristine shape but only

after having been freed from bondage for some hours. After several

more sodas, concoctions which up till recently I have despised as

injurious, I guess I will have filled out to my usual dimensions

around the waist line, but when I consider the long days of womanhood

stretched out before me in the future I will admit it is with a

sinking not only of the waist, but also of the heart.

More indignities have been heaped upon me. Why did I ever take up the

profession of a show girl? To-day I fell into the clutches of the

barbers. They were not gentle clutches, brutal rather; and such an

outspoken lot they were at that.

"What's that?" asked one of them as I stood rather nervously before

him with bared chest.

"Why, that," I replied, a trifle disconcerted, "that's my chest."

He looked at me for a moment, then smiled a slow, pitying smile. "Hey,

Tony," he suddenly called to his colleague, "come over here a moment

and see what this bird claims to be a chest."

All this yelled in the faces of the entire Biff-Bang company. It was

more inhuman and debasing than my first physical examination in

public. The doctors on this occasion, although they had not

complimented me, had at least been comparatively impersonal in

despatching their offices, but these men were far from being

impersonal. I perceived with horror that it was their intention to use

my chest as a means of bringing humor into their drab existences. Tony

came and surveyed me critically.

"That," he drawled musically, "ees not a chest. That ees the bottom

part of hees neck."

"I know it is," replied the other, "but somehow his arms have gotten

mixed up in the middle of it."

Tony shrugged his shoulders eloquently. He assumed the appearance of a

man completely baffled.

"Honestly, now, young feller," continued my first tormentor, "are you

serious when you try to tell us that that is your chest?"

He drew attention to the highly disputed territory by poking me

diligently with his thumb.

"That's the part the doctor always listened to whenever I had a cold,"

I replied as indifferently as possible. The man pondered over this for

a moment.

"Well," he replied at length, "probably the doctor was right, but to

the impartial observer it would seem to be, as my friend Tony so

accurately observed, the bottom part of your neck."

"It really doesn't matter much after all," I replied, hoping to close

the conversation. "You all were not sent here to establish the

location of the different parts of my anatomy, anyway."

The man appeared not to have heard me. "I'd swear," he murmured

musingly, standing back and regarding me with tilted head, "I'd swear

it was his neck if it warn't for his arms." He suddenly discontinued

his dreamy observations and became all business.

"Well, sir," he began briskly, "now that we've settled that what do

you want me to do to it?"

"Why, shave it, of course," I replied bitterly. "That's what you're

here for, isn't it? All us Show Girls have got to have our chests

shaved."

"An' after I've shaved your chest, dear," he asked in a soothing

voice, "what do you want me to do with it?"

"With what?" I replied, enraged, "with my chest?"

"No," he answered easily, "not your chest, but that one poor little

pitiful hair that adorns it. Do you want me to send it home to your

ma, all tied around with a pink ribbon?"

I saw no reason to reply to this insult, but stood uneasily and tried

to maintain my dignity while he lathered me with undue elaboration.

When it was time for him to produce his razor he faltered.

"I can't do it," he said brokenly, "I haven't the heart to cut it down

in its prime. It looks so lonely and helpless there by itself." He

swept his razor around several times with a free-handed,

blood-curdling swoop of his arm. "Well, here goes," he said, shutting

his eyes and approaching me. Tony turned away as if unable to witness

the scene. I was unnerved, but I stood my ground. The deed was done

and I was at last free to depart. "That's a terrible chest for a Show

Girl," I heard him to say to Tony as I did so.

_May 29th._ The world has come clattering down around my ears and I am

buried, crushed and bruised beneath the debris. There was a dress

rehearsal to-day, and I, from the whole company, was singled out for

the wrath of the gods.

"Who is that chorus girl on the end acting frantic?" cried out one of

the directors in the middle of a number. My name was shouted across

the stage until it echoed and resounded and came bounding back in my

face from every corner of the shadow-plunged theater. I knew I was in

for it and drew myself up majestically although I turned pale under my

war paint.

"Well, tell him he isn't walking on stilts," continued the director,

and although it was perfectly unnecessary, I was told that and several

other things with brutal candor. The dance went on but I knew the eyes

of the director were on me. My legs seemed to lose all proper

coordination. My arms became unmanageable. I lost step and could not

pick it up again, yet, as in a nightmare, I struggled on desperately.

Suddenly the director clapped his hands. The music ceased, and I

slowed down to an uneasy shuffle.

"Sweetheart," said the director, addressing me personally, "you're not

dancing. You're swimming, that's what you're doing. As a Persian girl

you would make a first class squaw." He halted for a moment and then

bawled out in a great voice, "Understudy!" and I was removed from the

stage in a fainting condition. This evening I was shipped back to

camp a thoroughly discredited Show Girl. I had labored long in

vicious, soul-squelching corsets and like Samson been shorn of my

locks, and here I am after all my sacrifices relegated back to the

scrap heap. Why am I always the unfortunate one? I must have a private

plot in the sky strewn with unlucky stars. Camp routine after the free

life of the stage is unbearably irksome. My particular jimmy legs was

so glad to see me back that he almost cried as he thrust a broom and a

swab into my hands.

"Bear a hand," he said gleefully, "get to work and stick to it. We're

short of men," he added, "and there is no end of things for you to

do."

I did them all and he was right. There surely is no end to the things

he can devise for me to do. I long for the glamour and footlights of

the gay white way, but I have been cast out and rejected as many a

Show Girl has been before me.

_June 1st._ The morning papers say all sort of nice things about

Biff-Bang but I can hardly believe them sincere after the treatment I

received. I know for a fact that the man who took my place was

knock-kneed and that the rest of his figure could not hold a candle to

mine.

I still feel convinced that Biff-Bang lost one of its most

prepossessing and talented artists when I was so unceremoniously

removed from the chorus.

_June 10th._ I was standing doing harm to no one in a vague, rather

unfortunate way I have, when all of a sudden, without word or warning,

a very competent looking sailor seized me by the shoulders and,

thrusting his face close to mine, cried out:

"Do you want to make a name for yourself in the service?"

I left the ground two feet below me in my fright and when I alighted

there were tears of eagerness in my eyes.

"Yes," I replied breathlessly, "oh, sir, yes."

"Then pick up that," he cried dramatically, pointing to a cigar butt

on the parade ground. I didn't wait for the laughter. I didn't have

to. It was forthcoming immediately. Huge peals of it. Sailors are a

very low tribe of vertebrate. They seem to hang around most of the

time waiting for something to laugh at--usually me. It is my belief

that I have been the subject of more mirth since I came to camp than

any other man on the station. Whatever I do I seem to do it too much

or too little. There even seems to be something mirth-provoking in my

personal appearance, which I have always regarded hitherto not without

a certain shade of satisfaction. Only the other day I caught the eyes

of the gloomiest sailor in camp studying me with a puzzled expression.

He gazed at me for such a long time that I became quite disconcerted.

Slowly a smile spread over his face, then a strange, rusty laugh

forced itself through his lips.

"Doggone if I can solve it," he chuckled, turning away and shaking his

head; "it's just simply too much for me."

He looked back once, clapped his hands over his mouth and proceeded

merrily on his way. I am glad of course to be able to bring joy into

the lives of sailors, but I did not enlist for that sole purpose.

Returning to the cigar butt, however, I was really quite disappointed.

I do so want to make a name for myself in the service that I would

eagerly jump at the chance of sailing up the Kiel canal in a Barnegat

Sneak Box were it not for the fact that sailing always makes me

deathly sick. I don't know why it is, but the more I have to do with

water the more reasons I find for shunning it. The cigar butt episode

broke my heart though. I was all keyed up for some heroic deed--what

an anti-climax! I left the spot in a bitter, humiliated mood. There is

only one comforting part about the whole affair--I did not pick up

that cigar butt. He did, I'll bet, though when nobody was looking. I

don't know as I blame him--there were still several healthy drags left

in it.

_June 11th._ This war is going to put a lot of Chinamen out of

business if it keeps up much longer. The first thing a sailor will do

after he has been paid off will be to establish a laundry, and he

won't be a slouch at the business at that. I feel sure that I am

qualified right now to take in family laundry and before the end of

summer I guess I'll be able to do fancy work. At present I am what

you might call a first class laundryman, but I'm not a fancy

laundryman yet. Since they've put us in whites I go around with the

washer-woman's complaint most of the time. Terrible shooting pains in

my back! My sympathy for the downtrodden is increasing by leaps and

bounds. I can picture myself without any effort of the imagination

bending over a tub after the war doing the family washing while my

wife is out running for alderman or pulling the wires to be appointed

Commissioner of the Docks. The white clothes situation, however, is

serious. It seems that every spare moment I have I am either washing

or thinking of washing or just after having washed, and to one who

possesses as I do the uncanny faculty of being able to get dirtier in

more places in the shortest space of time than any ten street children

picked at random could ever equal, life presents one long vista of

soap and suds.

[Illustration: "THIS WAR IS GOING TO PUT A LOT OF CHINAMEN OUT OF

BUSINESS"]

"You boys look so cute in your funny white uniforms," a girl said to

me the other day. "It must be so jolly wearing them."

I didn't strike her, for she was easily ten pounds heavier than I was,

but I made it easily apparent that our relations would never progress

further than the weather vane. I used to affect white pajamas, the

same seeming to harmonize with the natural purity of my nature, but

after the war I fear I shall be forced to discontinue the practise in

favor of more lurid attire. However, I still believe that a bachelor

should never wear anything other than white pajamas or at the most

lavender, but this of course is merely a personal opinion.

_June 14th._ I have been hard put to-day. The Lord only knows what

trials and tribulations will be visited upon me next. At present I am

quite unnerved. To-day I was initiated into all the horrifying secrets

and possibilities of the bayonet, European style. Never do I remember

spending a more unpleasant half an hour. The instructor was a

resourceful man possessed of a most vivid imagination. Before he had

finished with us potential delicatessen dealers were lying around as

thick as flies. We were brushing them off.

After several hair-raising exhibitions he formed us into two lines

facing each other and told us to begin.

"Now lunge," he said, "and look as if you meant business."

I glanced ingratiatingly across at my adversary. He was simply glaring

at me. Never have I seen an expression of greater ferocity. It was too

much. I knew for certain that if he ever lunged at me I'd never live

to draw another yellow slip.

"Mister Officer," I gasped, pointing across at this blood-thirsty man,

"don't you think that he's just a little too close? I'm afraid I might

hurt him by accident."

The officer surveyed the situation with a swift, practical eye.

"Oh, I guess he can take care of himself all right," he replied. That

was just what I feared.

The man smiled grimly.

"But does he know that this is only practise?" I continued. "He

certainly doesn't look as if he did."

"That's the way you should look," said the officer, "work your own

face up a bit. This isn't a vampire scene. Don't look as if you were

going to lure him. Y'know you're supposed to be angry with your

opponent when you meet him in battle, quite put out in fact. And

furthermore you're supposed to look it."

I regarded my opponent, but only terror was written on my face. Then

suddenly we lunged and either through fear or mismanagement I

succeeded only in running my bayonet deep into the ground. In some

strange manner the butt of the gun jabbed me in the stomach and I was

completely winded. My opponent was dancing and darting around me like

a local but thorough-going lightning storm. I abandoned my gun and

stood sideways, thus decreasing the possible area of danger. Had the

exercises continued much longer I would have had a spell of something,

probably the blind staggers.

[Illustration: "I STOOD SIDE-WAYS, THUS DECREASING THE POSSIBLE AREA

OF DANGER"]

"You're not pole vaulting," said the instructor to me, as he returned

the gun. "In a real show you'd have looked like a pin cushion by this

time." I felt like one.

Then it all started over again and this time I thought I was doing a

little better, when quite unexpectedly the instructor shouted at me.

"Stop prancing around in that silly manner," he cried, "you're not

doing a sword dance, sonny."

"He thinks he's still a show girl," some one chuckled, "he's that

seductive."

Mess gear interrupted our happy morning. The sight of a knife fairly

sickened me.

_June 24th._ Last week I caught a liberty--a perfect Forty-three--and

went to spend it with some cliff dwelling friends of mine who, heaven

help their wretched lot! lived on the sixth and top floor of one of

those famous New York struggle-ups. Before shoving off there was some

slight misunderstanding between the inspecting officer and myself

relative to the exact color of my, broadly speaking, Whites.

"Fall out, there," he said to me. "You can't go out on liberty in

Blues."

"But these, sir," I responded huskily, "are not Blues; they're

Whites."

"Look like Blues to me," he said skeptically. "Fall out anyway. You're

too dirty."

For the first time in my life I said nothing at the right time. I just

looked at him. There was a dumb misery in my eyes, a mute, humble

appeal such as is practised with so much success by dogs. He couldn't

resist it. Probably he was thinking of the days when he, too, stood in

line waiting impatiently for the final formalities to be run through

before the world was his again.

"Turn around," he said brokenly. I did so.

"Fall in," he ordered, after having made a prolonged inspection of my

shrinking back. "I guess you'll do, but you are only getting through

on a technicality--there's one white spot under your collar."

Officers are people after all, although sometimes it's hard to realize

it. This one, in imagination, I anointed with oil and rare perfumes,

and costly gifts I laid at his feet, while in a glad voice I called

down the blessings of John Paul Jones upon his excellent head. Thus I

departed with my kind and never did the odor of gasoline smell sweeter

in my nose than did the fumes that were being emitted by the impatient

flivver that waited without the gate. And sweet, too, was the fetid

atmosphere of the subway after the clean, bracing air of Pelham,

sweet was the smell of garlic belonging to a mustache that sat beside

me, and sweet were the buttery fingers of a small child who kept

clawing at me while their owner demanded of the whole car if I was a

"weal mavy sailor boy?" I didn't look it, and I didn't feel it, but I

had forty-three hours of freedom ahead of me, so what did I care?

All went well with me until I essayed the six flight climb-up to the

cave of these cliff-dwelling people, when I found that the one-storied

existence I had been leading in the Pelham bungalows had completely

unfitted me for mountain climbing. As I toiled upward I wondered dimly

how these people ever managed to keep so fat after having mounted to

such a great distance for so long a time. Somehow they had done it,

not only maintained their already acquired fat but added greatly

thereto. There would be no refreshing cup to quaff upon arriving, only

water, or at best milk. This I knew and the knowledge added pounds to

my already heavy feet.

"My, what a dirty sailor you are, to be sure," they said to me from

the depth of their plump complacency.

"Quite so," I gasped, falling into a chair, "I seem to remember having

heard the same thing once before to-day."

_June 25th._ Neither Saturday nor Sunday was a complete success and

for a while Saturday afternoon assumed the proportions of a disaster.

After having rested from my climb, I decided to wash my Whites so that

I wouldn't be arrested as a deserter or be thrown into the brig upon

checking in. The fat people on learning of my intentions decided that

the sight of such labor would tire them beyond endurance, so they

departed, leaving me in solitary possession of their flat. I thereupon

removed my jumper, humped my back over the tub, scrubbed industriously

until the garment was white, then hastened roofwards and arranged it

prettily on the line. This accomplished, I hurried down, removed my

trousers, rehumped my back over the tub, scrubbed industriously until

the trousers in turn were white and once more dashed roofwards. I have

always been absent minded, but never to such an appalling extent as to

appear clad only in my scanty underwear in the midst of a mixed throng

of ladies, gentlemen and children. This I did. Some venturous souls

had claimed the roof as their own during my absence so that when I

sprang from the final step to claim my place in the sun I found myself

by no means alone. With a cry of horror I leaped to the other side of

the clothes-line and endeavored to conceal myself behind an old lady's

petticoat or a lady's old petticoat or something of that nature.

Whoever wore the thing must have been a very short person indeed, for

the garment reached scarcely down to my knees, below which my B.V.D.'s

fluttered in an intriguing manner.

"Sir," thundered a pompous gentleman, "have you any explanation for

your surprising conduct?"

"Several," I replied briskly from behind my only claim on

respectability. "In the first place, I didn't expect an audience. In

the second--"

"That will do, sir," broke in this heavy person in a quarterdeck

voice. "Who, may I ask, are you?"

"You may," I replied. "I'm a God-fearing sailor man who is doing the

best he can to keep nice and clean in spite of the uncalled for

intervention of a red-faced oaf of a plumber person who should know

better than to stand around watching him."

[Illustration: "I'M A GOD-FEARING SAILOR MAN WHO IS DOING THE BEST HE

CAN TO KEEP CLEAN"]

"Don't take on so, George," said one of the women whom I suspected of

edging around in order to get a better view of me, "the poor young man

is a sailor--where is your patriotism?"

"Yes," broke in the other woman, edging around on the other side,

"he's one of our sailor boys. Treat him nice."

"Patriotic, I am," roared George wrathfully, "but not to the extent of

condoning and looking lightly upon such a flagrant breach of decency

as this semi-nude, so-called sailor has committed in our midst."

"If you'd give me a couple of Thrift Stamps," I suggested, "I might be

able to come out from behind this blooming barrage."

"Shameless," exploded the man.

"Not at all," I replied, "in the olden days it was quite customary for

young gentlemen and elderly stout ones like yourself, for instance, to

drop in at the best caves with very much less on than I have without

any one considering their conduct in any degree irregular. In fact,

the ladies of this time were no better themselves, it being deemed

highly proper for them to appear in some small bit of stuff and nobody

thought the worst of it at all. Take the early days of the fifteenth

century B.C.--"

At this point in my eloquent address a young child, who had hitherto

escaped my attention, took it upon herself to swing on the line with

the result that it parted with a snap and my last vestige of

protection came fluttering to the roof. For one tense moment I stood

gazing into the dilated eyes of those before me. Then with surprising

presence of mind, I sprang to a ladder that led to the water tank,

swarmed up it with the agility of a cat and lowered myself with a gasp

of despair into the cold, cold water of the tank. From this place of

security I gazed down on the man who had been responsible for my

unfortunate plight. I felt myself sinned against, and the longer I

remained in that water, up to my neck, the more I felt my wrongs. I

gave voice to them. I said bitter, abusive things to the man.

"Clear the quarter deck," I shouted, "get aft, or, by gad, I'll come

fluttering down there on your flat, bald head like a blooming flood.

Vamoos, hombre, pronto--plenty quick and take your brood with you."

Then I said some more things as my father before me had said them, and

the man withdrew with his women.

"He's a sailor," he said as he did so. "Hurry, my dears, this is worse

than nakedness."

I emerged and sat in a borrowed bathrobe the rest of the evening. The

next morning my clothes were still damp. Now, that's what I call a

stupid way to spend a Saturday night on liberty. The fat people

enjoyed it.

_June 29th._ I met a very pleasant dog yesterday, whom I called Mr.

Fogerty because of his sober countenance and the benign but rather

puzzled expression in his large, limpid eyes, which were almost

completely hidden by his bangs. He was evidently a visitor in camp, so

I took him around and introduced him to the rest of the dogs and

several of the better sort of goats. In all of these he displayed a

friendly but dignified interest, seeming to question them on the life

of the camp, how they liked the Navy and what they thought were the

prospects for an early peace. He refused to be separated from me,

however, and even broke into the mess hall, from which he was

unceremoniously ejected, but not before he had gotten half of my

ration. In some strange manner he must have found out from one of the

other dogs my name and address and exactly where I swung, for in the

middle of the night I awoke to hear a lonesome whining in the darkness

beneath my hammock and then the sniff, sniff of an investigating nose.

As I know how it feels to be lonely in a big black barracks in the

dead of night I carefully descended to the deck and collected this

animal--it was my old friend, Mr. Fogerty, and he was quite overjoyed

at having once more found me. After licking my face in gratitude he

sat back on his haunches and waited for me to do something amusing. I

didn't have the heart to leave him there in the darkness. Dogs have a

certain way about them that gets me every time. I lifted Mr. Fogerty,

a huge hulk of a dog, with much care, and adjusting of overlapping

paws into my hammock, and received a kiss in the eye for my trouble.

Then I followed Mr. Fogerty into the hammock and resumed my slumber,

but not with much comfort. Mr. Fogerty is a large, sprawly dog, who

evidently has been used to sleeping in vast spaces and who sees no

reason for changing a lifelong habit. Consequently he considered me in

the nature of a piece of gratifying upholstery. He slept with his hind

legs on my stomach and his front paws propped against my chin. When he

scratched, as he not infrequently did, what I decided must be a flea,

his hind leg beat upon the canvas and produced a noise not unlike a

drum. Thus we slept, but through some miscalculation I must have slept

over, for it seems that the Master-at-arms, a very large and capable

Irishman, came and shook my hammock.

[Illustration: "I TOOK HIM AROUND AND INTRODUCED HIM TO THE REST OF

THE DOGS AND SEVERAL OF THE BETTER SORT OF GOATS"]

"Hit the deck there, sailor," he said, "shake a leg, shake a leg."

At this point Mr. Fogerty took it upon himself to peer over the side

of the hammock to see who this disturber of peace and quiet could be.

This was just a little out of the line of duty for the jimmy legs, and

I can't say as I blame him for his conduct under rather trying

circumstances. Mr. Fogerty has a large, shaggy head, not unlike a

lion's, and his mouth, too, is quite large and contains some very long

and sharp teeth. It seems that Mr. Fogerty, still heavy with slumber,

quite naturally yawned into the horrified face of the Jimmy-legs, who,

mistaking the operation for a hostile demonstration, retreated from

the barracks with admirable rapidity for one so large, crying in a

distracted voice as he did so:

"By the saints, it's a beast he's turned into during the night. Sure,

it's a visitation of Providence, heaven preserve us."

It seems I have been washing hammocks ever since. Mr. Fogerty sits

around and wonders what it's all about. I like Fogerty, but he gets me

in trouble, and in this I need no help whatsoever.

[Illustration: "I RESUMED MY SLUMBER, BUT NOT WITH MUCH COMFORT"]

_July 1st._ This day I almost succeeded in sinking myself for the

final count. The fishes around about the environs of City Island were

disappointed beyond words when I came up for the fourth time and

stayed up. In my delirium I imagined that school had been let out in

honor of my reception and that all the pretty little fishes were

sticking around in expectant groups cheering loudly at the thought of

the conclusion of their meatless days. Fortunately for the Navy,

however, I cheated them and saved myself in order to scrub many more

hammocks and white clothes, an object to which I seem to have

dedicated my life.

It all come about, as do most drowning parties, in quite an unexpected

manner. For some reason it had been arranged that I should take a swim

over at one of the emporiums at City Island, and, as I interposed no

objections, I accordingly departed with my faithful Mr. Fogerty

tumbling along at my heels. Since Mr. Fogerty involved me in trouble

the other day by barking at the Jimmy-legs he has endeavored in all

possible ways to make up for his thoughtless irregularity. For

instance, he met me this morning with an almost brand new shoe which

in some manner he had managed to pick up in his wanderings. It fits

perfectly, and if he only succeeds in finding the mate to it I shall

probably not look for the owner. As a further proof of his good will

Mr. Fogerty bit, or attempted to bite, a P.O. who spoke to me

roughly regarding the picturesque way I was holding my gun.

"Whose dog is that?" demanded the P.O.

Silence in the ranks. Mr. Fogerty looked defiantly at him for a moment

and then trotted deliberately over and sat down upon my foot.

"Oh, so he belongs to you!" continued the P.O. in a threatening voice.

"No, sir," I faltered; "you see, it isn't that way at all. I belong to

Mr. Fogerty."

"Who in--who in--who is Mr. Fogerty?" shouted the P.O. "And how

in--how in--how did _he_ happen to get into the conversation?"

"Why, this is Mr. Fogerty," I replied; "this dog here, sitting on my

foot."

"Oh, is that so?" jeered the P.O., a man noted for his quick retorts.

"Well, you take your silly looking dog away from here and secure him

in some safe place. He ain't no fit associate for our camp dogs. And,

furthermore," he added, "the next time Mr. Fogerty attempts to bite me

I'm going to put you on report--savez?"

Mr. Fogerty is almost as much of a comfort in camp as mother.

Well, that's another something else again and has nothing to do with

my swim and approximate drowning at City Island. Swimming has always

been one of my strong points, and I have taken in the past no little

pride in my appearance, not only in a bathing outfit, but also in the

water. However, the suit they provided me with on this occasion did

not show me up in a very alluring light. It was quite large and

evidently built according to a model of the early Victorian Era. I was

swathed in yards of cloth much in the same manner as is a very young

child. It delighted Mr. Fogerty, who expressed his admiration by

attaching himself to the lower half of my attire and remaining there

until I had waded through several colonies of barnacles far out into

the bay. Bidding farewell to Mr. Fogerty at this point, I gave myself

over to the joy of the moment and went wallowing along, giving a

surprising imitation of the famous Australian crawl. Far in the

distance I sighted an island, to which I decided to swim. This was a

very poor decision, indeed, because long before I had reached the

spot I was in a sinking condition owing to the great heaviness of my

suit and a tremendous slacking down of lung power. It was too late to

retreat to the shore; the island was the nearest point, and that

wasn't near. On I gasped, my mind teeming with cheerless thoughts of

the ocean's bed waiting to receive me. Just as I was about to shake

hands with myself for the last time I cleared the water from my eyes

and discovered that the island though still distant was not altogether

impossible. Therewith I discarded the top part of my suit and struck

out once more. The island was now almost within my grasp. Life seemed

to be not such a lost cause after all. Then suddenly, quite clearly,

just as I was about to pull myself up on the shore, I saw a woman

standing on the bank and heard her shouting in a very conventional

voice:

"Private property! Private property!"

I sank. This was too much. As I came up for the first count, and just

before I sank back beneath the blue, I had time to hear her repeat:

"Private property! Please keep off!"

I went down very quickly this time and very far. When I arose I saw as

though in a dream another woman standing by the first one and

seemingly arguing with her.

"He's drowning!" she said.

"I'm sure I can't help that!" the other one answered. And then in a

loud, imperious voice:

"Private property! No visitors allowed!"

The water closed over my head and stilled her hateful voice.

"No," she was saying as I came up for the third time; "I can't do it.

If I make an exception of one I must make an exception of all."

Although I hated to be rude about it, having always disliked forcing

myself upon people, I decided on my fourth trip down that unless I

wanted to be a dead sailor I had better be taking steps. It was almost

too late. There wasn't enough wind left in me to fatten a small sized

bubble.

"There he is again!" she cried in a petulant voice as I once more

appeared. "Why doesn't he go away?"

"He's just about to--for good!" said the other lady. With a pitiful

yap I struck out feebly in the general direction of the shore. It

wouldn't work. My arms refused to move. Then quite suddenly and

deliriously I felt two soft, cool arms enfold me, and my head sank

back on a delicately unholstered shoulder. Somehow it reminded me of

the old days.

"Home, James," I murmured, as I was slowly towed to shore. Just before

closing my eyes I caught a fleeting glimpse of a young lady clad in

one of the one-piecest one-piece bathing suits I had ever seen. She

was bending over me sympathetically.

"Private property!" cried my tormentor, shaking a finger at me. "What

a pity!" I thought as I closed my eyes and drifted off into sweet

dreams in which Mr. Fogerty, my beautiful rescuer, and myself were

dancing hand-and-hand on the parade ground to the music of the massed

band, much to the edification of the entire station assembled in

review formation.

Presently I awoke to the hateful strains of this old hard-shell's

voice:

"See what you've done!" she was saying to the young girl. "You've

brought in a half naked man, and now that he has seen you in a much

worse condition than he is, we'll have ten thousand sailors swimming

out to this island in one continuous swarm."

"Oh, won't that be fun!" cried the girl. And from that time on, in

spite of the objections of her mother, we were fast friends.

When I returned to shore it was in a rowboat with this fair young

creature. The faithful Fogerty was waiting on the beach for me, where,

it later developed, he had been sleeping quite comfortably on an

unknown woman's high powered sport hat, as is only reasonable.

_July 2nd._ Mother got in again. There seems to be no practical way of

keeping her out. This time she came breezing in with a friend from

East Aurora, a large, elderly woman of about one hundred and ten

summers and an equal number of very hard winters. The first thing

mother said was to the effect that she was going to see what she could

do about getting me a rating. She did. The very first officer she saw

she sailed up to and buttonholed much to my horror.

"Why can't my boy Oswald have a pretty little eagle on his arm, such

as I see so many of the young men up here wearing about the camp?"

The abruptness of this question left the officer momentarily stunned,

but I will say for him that he rallied quickly and returned a

remarkably diplomatic reply to the effect that the pretty little

eagle, although pleasing to gaze upon, was not primarily intended to

be so much of a decoration as means of identification, and that

certain small qualifications were required, as a rule, before one was

permitted to wear one of the emblems in question; qualifications, he

hastened to add, which he had not the slightest doubt that I failed to

possess if I was the true son of my mother, but which, owing to fate

and circumstances, I had probably been unable to exercise. Whereupon

he bid her a very courteous good-day, returned my salute, and passed

on, but not before the very old lady accompanying my mother saluted

also, raising her hand to her funny bit of a bonnet with unnecessary

snappiness and snickering in a senile manner. This last episode upset

me completely, but the old lady was irrepressible. From that time on

she punctuated her progress through the camp with exaggerated salutes

to all the officers she encountered on the way. This, of course, was

quite a startling and undignified performance for one of her years,

very embarrassing to me, as well as mystifying to the officers, who

hardly knew whether to hurl me into the brig as vicarious atonement or

to rebuke the flighty old creature, on the grounds of undue levity.

Most of them passed by, however, with averted eyes and a

discountenanced expression, feeling, I am sure, that I had put her up

to it. Mother thought it quite amusing, and enjoyed my discomfiture

hugely. Then for no particular reason she began to garnish her

conversation with inappropriate seagoing expressions, such as "Pipe

down," "Hit the deck," "Avast," and "Hello, Buddy!" Where she ever

picked up all this nonsense I am at a loss to discover, but she

continued to pull it to the bitter end.

"Hello, Buddy!" was the way she greeted the Jimmy-legs of my barracks

after I had introduced her to him with much elaboration. This

completely floored the poor lad, and rendered him inarticulate. He

thinks now that I come from either a family of thugs or maniacs,

probably the latter. I succeeded in shaking the old thing for a while,

and when I next found her she was demonstrating the proper method of

washing whites to a group of sailors assembled in the wash room of one

of our most popular latrines. She was heading in the direction of the

shower baths when I finally rounded her up. She was a game old lady.

I'll have to hand her that. Her wildest escapade was reserved for the

end of her visit, when I took her over to the K. of C. hut, and she

challenged any sailor present to a game of pool for a quarter a ball.

When we told her that the sailors in the Navy never gambled she said

that she was completely off the service, and that she thought it was

high time that we learned to do something useful instead of singing

sentimental songs and weaving ourselves into intricate figures. This

remark forced us to it, and much against our wills we proceeded to

show the old lady up at pool. She had been bluffing all along, and

when it came to a showdown we found that she couldn't shoot for

shucks. When the news spread around the hut the sailors crowded about

her thick as thieves, challenging her to play. She was a wild,

unregenerated old lady, but she was by no means an easy mark, as it

later developed when she matched them for the winnings, got it all

back, and I am told by some sailors that she even left the hut a

little ahead of the game. I don't object to notoriety, but there are

numerous ways of winning it that are objectionable, and this old lady

was one. Mother must have been giddier in her youth than I ever

imagined.

_July 3d._ Yesterday I lost my dog Fogerty and didn't find him until

late in the afternoon. He was up in front of the First Regiment,

mustered in with the liberty party. When he discovered my presence he

looked coldly at me, as if he had never seen me before, so I knew that

he had a date. He just sat there and shook his bangs over his eyes and

tried to appear as if he were somewhere else. When the order come to

shove off he joined the party and trotted off without even looking

back, and that was the last I saw of him until this morning, when he

came drifting in, rather unsteadily, and regarded me with a shifty

but insulting eye. I am rapidly discovering hitherto unsuspected

depths of depravity in Mr. Fogerty, which leads me to believe that he

is almost human.

_July 4th._ This has been the doggonest Fourth of July I ever spent,

and as a result I am in much trouble. All day long I have been

grooming myself to look spic and span at the review held in honor of

the Secretary when he opened the new wing to the camp. I missed it. I

lost completely something in the neighborhood of ten thousand men. It

seems hard to do, but the fact, the ghastly fact, remains that I did

it. When I dashed out of the barracks with my newly washed, splendidly

seagoing, still damp white hat in my hand my company was gone, and the

whole camp seemed deserted. Far in the distance I heard the music of

the band. Fogerty looked inquiringly at me and I fled. He fled after

me.

[Illustration: "I LOST COMPLETELY SOMETHING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF

10,000 MEN"]

"Fogerty," I gasped, "this is a trick I have to pull off alone. You're

not in on this review, and for God's sake act reasonable."

I couldn't bear the thought of chasing across the parade ground with

that simple-looking dog bounding along at my heels. My remark had no

effect. Fogerty merely threw himself into high, and together we sped

in the direction of the music. It was too late. Thousands of men were

swinging past in review, and in all that mass of humanity there was

one small vacant place that I was supposed to fill. I crouched down

behind a tree and observed the scene through stricken eyes. How could

I possibly have managed to lose nearly ten thousand men? It seemed

incredible, and I realized then that I alone could have accomplished

such a feat. And I had been so nice and clean, too, and I had worked

so hard to be all of those things. I bowed my head in misery, and Mr.

Fogerty, God bless his dissolute soul, crept up to me and tried to

tell me it was all right, and didn't matter much anyway. I looked

down, and discovered that my snow white hat was all muddy. Fogerty sat

on it.

_July 8th._ As a result of my being scratched out of the Independence

day review I have been tried out as punishment in all sorts of

disagreeable positions, all of which I have filled with an

inefficiency only equaled by the bad temper of my over-lords. Some of

these tasks, one in particular was of such a ridiculous nature that I

refuse to enter it into my diary for an unfeeling posterity to jeer

at. I am willing to state, however, that the accomplishments of

Hercules, that redoubtable handy man of mythology, were trifling in

comparison with mine.

To begin with, the coal pile is altogether too large and my back is

altogether too refined. There should be individual coal piles provided

for temperamental sailors. Small, colorful, appetizingly shaped mounds

of nice, clean, glistening chunks of coal they should be, and the coal

itself could easily be made much lighter, approaching if possible the

weight of feathers. This would be a task any reasonably inclined

sailor would attack with relish, particularly if his efforts were

attended by the strains of some good, snappy jazz. However, reality

wears a graver face and a sootier one. Long did I labor and valiantly

but to little effect. More coal fell off of my shovel than remained on

it. This was due to the unfortunate fact that coal dust seems to

affect me most unpleasantly, much in the same manner as daisies or

golden rod affect hay fever sufferers. The result was that every time

I had my shovel poised in readiness to hurl its burden into space a

monolithic sneeze overpowered me, shook me to the keel, and all the

coal that I had trapped with so much patience and cunning fell

miserably around my feet, from whence it had lately risen. Little

things like this become most discouraging when strung out for a great

period of time. In this manner I sneezed and sweated throughout the

course of a sweltering afternoon, and just as I was about to call it a

day along comes an evilly inclined coal wagon and dumps practically in

my lap one hundred times more coal than I had disturbed in the entire

course of my labors. On top of this Fogerty, who had been loafing

around all day with his tongue out disporting himself on the coal pile

like a dog in the first snow, started a landslide somewhere above and

came bearing down on me in a cloud of dust. I found myself buried

beneath the delighted Fogerty and a couple of tons of coal, from which

I emerged unbeamingly, but not before Mr. Fogerty had addressed his

tongue to my blackened face as an expression of high good humor.

[Illustration: "FOGERTY CAME BEARING DOWN ON ME IN A CLOUD OF DUST"]

"Take me to the brig," I said, walking over to the P.O., "I'm through.

You can put a service flag on that coal pile for me."

"What's consuming you, buddy?" asked the P.O. in not an unkindly

voice.

"Take me to the brig," I repeated, "it's too much. Here I've been

working diligently all day to reduce the size of this huge mass, when

up comes that old wagon and humps its back and belches forth its

horrid contents all over the place. It's ridiculous. I surrender my

shovel."

"Gord," breathed the P.O., looking at me pityingly, "we don't want to

go and reduce that coal pile, we want to enlarge it."

"Oh!" I replied, stunned, "I didn't quite understand. I thought you

wanted to make it smaller, so I've been trying to shovel it away all

afternoon."

"You shouldn't oughter have done that," replied the P.O. as if he were

talking to an idiot, "I suppose you've been shoveling her down hill

all day?"