e 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
Au