tor.

"Mrs. Berthelin," said she, "you have made some very damaging
statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney's character. What
proof have you?"

"Why, he wants to _marry_ her!" almost yelled the mother. "She's trapped
him."

"That's another lie," said Mayme.

"He told me himself that he was going to marry you."

"Did he? Then he's wrong. I wouldn't marry him with a brass ring,"
asserted Mayme.

"You wouldn't mar--You wouldn't _what_?" demanded the mother, outraged
and incredulous.

"You heard me. He knows it, too. I don't like the family--what I've seen
of them," observed Mayme judicially. "Besides, he's yellow."

David's shamed face emerged into view. "I'm not," he gulped. "She--she
made me."

"Captain!" said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice.
"Quartermaster's Department! Safety first! When half the little
fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin' their
fourteen-inch necks volunteerin' early and often to get where the
fightin' is."

David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly
expression.

"Let me out of here," he growled.

"David!" said his mother. "Where are you going?"

"To enlist."

"Davey!" It was a shriek. "You shan't."

"I will."

"I won't let you."

"You can go to--"

"Buddy!" Mayme's voice, magically softened, broke in. "Cut out the rough
stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein' a private is no
pink-silk picnic."

"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs.
Berthelin.

The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she
said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to
betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities."

Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and
aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good. I'll show you, Mayme. Wait till I
come back--if I ever do come back--and you'll be sorry."

"Hero stuff," commented the Little Red Doctor. "It'll all have oozed out
of his fingertips this time to-morrow."

"Will you show me a place to enlist?" challenged the boy. "And," he
added with a malicious grin, "will you enlist with me?"

"Sure!" said the Little Red Doctor. "I'll show you. But they won't take
me." He bestowed a bitter glance on his twisted foot. "Come along."

They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by
an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with