hat 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 SOMET