ce of glass. "And who are you,
lieutenant!"

"Special detail from the Ordnance Department, sir," says I.

"Oh, you are, eh?" he snorts. "Another bomb-proofer! Well, tell Mr.
Ellins I shall be back at 11:15--if this sector hasn't been captured in
the meantime," and as he double-quicks out he near runs down Mr. Piddie,
our rubber-stamp office manager, who has towed him in.

As for me, I stands there swallowin' air bubbles until my red-haired
disposition got below the boiling point once more. Then I turns to
Piddie.

"You heard, didn't you?" says I.

Piddie nods. "But I don't quite understand," says he. "What did he mean
by--er--bomb-proofer?"

"Just rank flattery, Piddie," says I. "The rankest kind. It's his way of
indicatin' that I'm a yellow dog hidin' under a roll-top desk for fear
someone'll kick me out where a parlor Pomeranian will look cross at me.
Excuse me if I don't seem to work up a blush. Fact is, though, I'm
gettin' kind of used to it."

"Oh, I say, though!" protests Piddie. "Why, everyone knows that you----"

"That's where you're dead wrong, Piddie," I breaks in. "What everybody
really knows is that while most of the young hicks who've been
Plattsburged into uniforms are already across Periscope Pond helpin'
swat the Hun, I'm still floatin' around here with nothing worse than car
dust on my tailor-built khaki. Why, even them bold Liberty bond patriots
who commute on the 8:03 are tired of asking me when I'm going to be sent
over to tell Pershing how it ought to be done. But when it comes to an
old crab of a swivel chair major chuckin' 'bomb-proofer' in my
teeth--well, I guess that'll be about all. Here's where I get a revise
or quit. Right here."

And it was sentiments like that, only maybe worded not quite so brash,
that I passed out to Old Hickory a little later on. He listens about as
sympathetic as a traffic cop hearin' why you tried to rush the stop
signal.

"I think we have discussed all that before, young man," says he. "The
War Department has recognized that, as the head of an essential
industry, I am entitled to a private secretary; also that you might
prove more useful with a commission than without one. And I rather
think you have. So there you are."

"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," says I, "but I can't see it that way. I don't
know whether I'm private seccing or getting ready for a masquerade ball.
Any one-legged man could do what I'm doing. I'm ready to chuck the
commission and enlist."