in succession and to such like
important social events. But there'd been other fellers. Two or three.
And one had a perfectly swell job as manager of a United Cigar branch.
Stub had been a great one for stickin' around, though, and when he
showed up in his uniform--well, that clinched things.

"It wasn't so much the khaki stuff I fell for," confides Miss Casey,
gazin' sentimental at a ham sandwich she's just unwrapped, "as it was
the i-dear back of it. It's in the blood, you might say, for I had an
uncle in the Spanish-American and a grandfather in the Civil War. So
when Mr. Mears tells me how, when it comes time for him to go over the
top, the one he'll be thinkin' most of will be me--Say, that got to me
strong. 'You win, Stubby,' says I. 'Flash the ring.'

"That's how it was staged, all in one scene. And later when that Jake
Horwitz from the United shop comes around sportin' his instalment
Liberty bond button, but backin' his fallen arches to keep him exempt, I
gives him the cold eye. 'Nix on the coo business, Mister Horwitz,' says
I, 'for when I hold out my ear for that it's got to come from a reg'lar
man. Get me?' Which is a good deal the same I hands the others.

"But say, between you and I, it's mighty lonesome work. You see, I'd
figured how Stub would be blowin' in from camp every now and then, and
we'd be doin' the Sunday afternoon parade up and down the block, with
all the girls stretchin' their necks after us. You know? Well, he's been
at the blessed camp near three months now and not once since that first
flyin' trip has he showed up here.

"Which is why I've been droppin' in on his old lady so often, tryin' to
dope why he shouldn't be let off, same as the others. Mrs. Mears, she's
all primed with the notion that her Edgar has been makin' himself so
useful down there that the colonel would get all balled up in his work
if he didn't keep Stub right on the job. 'See,' says she, wavin' a
picture post card at me, 'he's been appointed on the K. P. squad again.'
Honest, she thinks he's something like a Knights of Pythias and goes
marchin' around important with a plume in his hat and a gold sword.
Mothers are easy, ain't they? You can bet though, that Stub don't try to
buffalo little old me with anything like that. What he writes me, which
ain't much, is mostly that his top sergeant's a grouch or that they've
been quarantined on account of influenza. So I sends him back the best
advice I've got in stock, askin' h