supplying, kiddo.--It might
possibly be a fellow's mother, say--or a girl--or----"

"I bet girls like you, all right. And I bet you're brave too. Gee, you
must have felt proud on Registration Day when you stood in line to
register. I bet you were one of the first ones, weren't you? We helped
that day, too. Maybe you saw me--I gave out badges. But I guess you
wouldn't remember because you were probably all--all thrilled; you know
what I mean. That was the day--Tom--didn't show up----"

Roscoe Bent walked on alone. In a drug store window on the opposite
corner was a placard, the handiwork of the scouts, which showed how much
store Mr. Ellsworth set on the meeting of the next night:

SPECIAL! SPECIAL!

and a little farther down:

SCOUT GAMES
EXHIBITIONS OF
SCOUT SKILL AND RESOURCE

and so forth, and so forth:

ONE OF OUR OWN BOYS FROM CAMP
DIX, PRIVATE ROSCOE BENT,
WILL TELL OF SOLDIER LIFE.
COME AND GIVE HIM A WELCOME

There was more, but that was all Roscoe saw. It sickened him to read it.
He went on, heavy hearted, trying to comfort himself with the reflection
that he really did not know where Tom was or what he was doing. But it
did not afford him much comfort.

As he walked along, his head down, certain phrases ran continually
through his mind. They came out of the past, like things dead, out of
another life which Roscoe Bent knew no more: _Do you think I'd let them
get you? Do you think because you made fun of me ... I wouldn't be a
friend to you? I got the strength to strangle you! I know the trail--I'm
a scout--and I got here first. They'd have to kill me to make me
tell...._

Roscoe Bent looked behind him, as if he expected to see some one there.
But there was nothing but the straight, long street, in narrowing
perspective.

Under a lamp post on the next corner he took out of his alligator-skin
wallet a folded paper, very much worn on the creases, and holding it so
that the light caught it he skimmed hurriedly the few half-legible
sentences:

"... glad you didn't tell. If you had told it would have spoiled
it all--so I'm going to help the government in a way I can do
without lying to anybody.... can see I'm not the kind that tells
lies. The thing ... most glad about ... that you got registered.
... like you and I always did, even when you made fun of me."

"_I_ made fun----" he mumbled, crumpling the letter and sticking it into
the capa