is just plain Nick without no Blade on it and
the only blade he ever pulled was a blade of grass or something because
he use to help take care of the grounds at Washington Pk. before he was
drafted and he has been one of my admirers for a long while and that is
why he kept looking at me and he says he use to always try and get to
the games when it was my turn to pitch and he has been wanting to talk
to me ever since we been here but today was the first time he got up the
nerve and he never had no intentions of going on leave last Sat. and to
prove it he showed me a letter he got from his wife last Friday and she
don't spell very good but she spoke in the letter about comeing here to
see him this next Sunday and nothing about him comeing there to see her
and she is going to bring their 2 kids along and he says he never seen
a man with a prettier wind up then I got and all together he is O.K. and
when Shorty trys to make you beleive somebody is a murder he ought to
pick out a man that looks like the part.

I haven't said nothing to Shorty and I won't but what I will do is play
a joke on him right back only I will make it a good one and not no
fizzle like some of his.

And oh yes Al they have sent Castle over to the quarter masters dept.
and he won't have a chance to kill nobody there except when they come
after a pair of shoes.

Your pal, JACK.

[Illustration]

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 12.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well old pal I am writeing this in the Y.M.C.A. where a man
has got some chance to hear yourself think as they say but if you try
and write over in the barracks if they don't joggle your arm or tip your
seat over for a joke they are all the time jabbering back and forth in
foreign languages till you get so balled up that instead of writeing a
letter a man is libel to make out his will in Eskimo or something.

Speaking about foreign languages Al the next time I see you I will be
talking French like a regular Frenchman and you will have to ask me to
translate what I am talking about. Of course I am just jokeing about
that because I wouldn't spring a lot of stuff on you that you wouldn't
understand and I might just as well go up to a statue and ask them how
their father stood his operation or something. But what I am getting at
is that I am going to join the French lesson class here and its
something that you don't have to belong to it unless you want to but I
figure a man is a sucker if they don't take advantage of a c