all that sort of thing.

"Of course," says Waddy, "I tried to tell her that I'd had very little
to do personally with smashing the Hindenburg line. But she wouldn't
listen to a word. Besides, my French was rather lame. So we--we--Well,
we became very dear to each other. She was charming, utterly. And so
full of gratitude to all America. She could not do enough for our boys.
All day she was going among them, distributing little dainties she had
cooked, giving them little keepsakes, smiling at them, singing to them.
And every night she had half a dozen officers in to dinner. But to
me--ah, I can't tell you how sweet she was."

"Don't try," says I. "I think I get a glimmer. All this lasted three
days, eh! Then you moved on."

Waddy sighs deep. "I didn't know until then how dreadful war could be,"
says he. "I promised to come back to her just as soon as the awful mess
was over. She declared that she would come to America if I didn't. She
gave me one of her rings. 'It shall be as a token,' she told me, 'that I
am yours.'"

"Sort of a trunk check, eh?" says I.

"Ah, that ring!" says Waddy. "You see, it was too large for my little
finger too small for any of the others. And I was afraid of losing it if
I kept it in my pocket. I was always losing things--shaving mirrors,
socks, wrist watch. Going about like that one does. At least, I did. All
over France I scattered my belongings. That's what you get by having had
a valet for so long.

"So I called up Joe Bruzinski, my top sergeant. Best top in the army,
Joe; systematic, methodical. I depended upon him for nearly everything;
couldn't have gotten along without him, in fact. Not an educated fellow,
you know. Rather crude. An Americanized Pole, I believe. But efficient,
careful about little things. I gave him the ring to keep for me. Less
than a week after that I was laid up with a beastly siege of influenza
which came near finishing me. I was shipped back to a base hospital and
it was more than a month before I was on my feet again. Meanwhile I'd
gotten out of touch with my division, applied for a transfer to another
branch, got stuck with an S. O. S. job, and landed home at the tail-end
of everything after all the shouting was over."

"I see," says I. "Bruzinski lost in the shuffle."

"Precisely," says Waddy. "Mustered out months before I was. When I did
get loose they wouldn't let me go back to Belgium. And then----"

"I remember," says I. "You side-tracked the lovely