ese
honourary affairs usually are. Not a detail of uniform or equipment on
any of the men in the guard was overlooked. The American commander's
attention was as keen to boots, rifles and belts, as though he had been
a captain preparing the small command for a strenuous inspection at the
hands of some exacting superior.

As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen blue eyes taking in
each one of the men from head to foot, he stopped suddenly in front of
one man in the ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of
fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his sleeves there was
displayed two slender gold bars, placed on the forearm.

The decoration was no larger than two matches in a row and on that day
it had been in use hardly more than a year, yet neither its minuteness
nor its meaning escaped the eyes of the American commander.

Pershing turned sharply and faced File Three.

"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked.

"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three, his face pointed
stiffly ahead. File Three, even now under twenty-one years of age, had
received his wounds in the early fighting that is called the battle of
Loos.

"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning rejoinder of the American
commander, who accompanied his remark with a straightforward look into
the eyes of File Three.

Completing the inspection without further incident, General Pershing and
his staff faced the honour guard and stood at the salute, while once
more the thunderous military band played the national anthems of America
and Great Britain.

The ceremony was followed by a reception in the cabin of the _Baltic_,
where General Pershing received the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady
Mayoress, and a delegation of civil authorities. The reception ended
when General Pershing spoke a few simple words to the assembled
representatives of the British and American Press.

"More of us are coming," was the keynote of his modest remarks.
Afterward he was escorted to the quay-side station, where a special
train of the type labelled Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run
to London.

The reception at the dock had had none of the features of a
demonstration by reason of the necessity for the ship's arrival being
secret, but as soon as the _Baltic_ had landed, the word of the American
commander's arrival spread through Liverpool like wildfire.

The railroad from the station lay through an industrial section o