but he realized that Secret Service agents could hardly be
expected to dwell on their adventures to "ship's boy" acquaintances, and
was it not enough that Mr. Conne remembered him at all, and his wish to
serve on an army transport?

He took the letter into the private office to show it to Mr. Burton,
resolved now that he would say nothing about his discovery in Schmitt's
cellar, for surely Mr. Conne would be the proper one to give the papers
to.

"You remember," he began, "that I said if I ever heard from Mr. Conne
and he offered me a job, I'd like to go. And you said it would be all
right."

Mr. Burton nodded. "And the expected--or the unexpected--has happened,"
he added, smiling, as he handed Mr. Conne's letter back to Tom.

"It'll be all right, won't it?" Tom asked.

"I suppose it will have to be, Tom," Mr. Burton said pleasantly. "That
was our understanding, wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir--but I'm sorry--kind of."

"I'm sorry, kind of, too; but I suppose there's no help for it. Some
boys," he added, as he toyed with a paperweight, "seem to be born to
work in offices, and some to wander over the face of the earth. I would
be the last to discourage you from entering war service in whatever form
it might be. But I'm afraid you'd go anyway, Tom, war or no war. The
world isn't big enough for some people. They're born that way. I'm
afraid you're one of them. It's surprising how unimportant money is in
traveling if one has the wanderlust. It'll be all right," he concluded
with a pleasant but kind of rueful smile. He understood Tom Slade
thoroughly.

"That's another thing I was thinking about, too," said Tom. "Pretty soon
I'll be eighteen and then I want to enlist. If I enlist in this country
I'll have to spend a whole lot of time in camp, and maybe in the end I
wouldn't get sent to the firing line at all. There's lots of 'em won't
even get across. If they find you've got good handwriting or maybe some
little thing like that, they'll keep you here driving an army wagon or
something. If I go on a transport I can give it up at either port. It's
mostly going over that the fellers are kept busy anyway; coming back
they don't need them. I found that out before. They'll give you a
release there if you want to join the army. So if I keep going back and
forth till my birthday, then maybe I could hike it through France and
join Pershing's army. I'd rather be trained over there, 'cause then I'm
nearer the front. You don't think tha