d over again, just hearin' me say it. Oh, oh! Did I really
believe Wilfred could have been as rash as that?

"Why," says she, "they drive right up to the trenches, don't they? Isn't
that fearfully dangerous?"

"War isn't a parlor pastime," puts in Mr. Robert. "And the ambulance
drivers take their chances with the rest of the men. But there's no
fightin' going on at Allentown. If Wilfred is there----"

"If he is," cuts in Mrs. Bliss, "I must go to him this very moment."

Some way that statement seemed to cheer Mr. Robert up a lot.

"Naturally," says he. "I'll look up a train for you. Just a second. In
the A's. Allentown--Allen. Ah, page 156. M-m-m. Here you are. First one
starts at 2 A.M. and gets you in at 5.15. Will that do?"

Mrs. Bliss turns on him sort of dazed, and blinks them round eyes of
hers. She's a fairly well put up old girl, you know, built sort of on
the pouter-pigeon type, but with good lines below the waist, and a
complexion that she's taken lots of pains with. Dresses real classy,
and, back to, she's often mistaken for daughter Marion. Travels in quite
a gay bunch, I understand, with Mr. Stanton Bliss kind of trailin' along
behind. Usually, when she ain't indulgin' in hysterics, she has very
fetchin' kittenish ways. You know the kind. Their specialty's makin' the
surroundin' males jump through the hoop for 'em. But when it comes to
arrivin' anywhere at 5.15 A.M.--well, not for her.

"I should be a sight," says she.

"You'd still be a mother, wouldn't you?" asks Mr. Robert.

It was rough of him, as he was given to understand by the looks of all
three ladies present, includin' Mrs. Robert; so he tries to square
himself by lookin' up a ten o'clock train, all Pullman, with diner and
observation.

"I would gladly take you up myself," says he, lyin' fluent, "if I
didn't have to go back to my boat. But here is Torchy. He'll go, I
suppose."

"Of course," says Vee.

And that's how I came to be occupyin' drawin'-room A, along with mother
and sister Marion, as we breezes up into the Pennsylvania hills on this
Wilfred hunt. A gushy, giggly young party Marion is, but she turns out
to be quite a help. It was her who spots the two young soldiers driftin'
through towards the smokin' compartment, and suggests that maybe they're
goin' to the same camp.

"And they would know if Wilfred was there, wouldn't they?" she adds.

"Maybe," says I. "I'll go ask."

Nice, clean-cut young chaps they was. They'd stre