n' room 65 feet
long and a ceiling 16 feet in the clear.

Then the slump came. I forget whether it was a new hero, or another
submarine raid. Anyway, the doings of Private Ben Riggs ceased to be
reported in the daily press. He dropped out of sight, like a nickel that
rolls down a sewer openin'. They didn't want him any more in vaudeville.
The movie producer welched on his proposition. The book sales fell off
sudden. The people that wanted to name cigars or safety razors after
him, or write songs about him, seemed to forget.

For a few days Private Ben couldn't seem to understand what had
happened. He went around in a kind of a daze. But he had sense enough
left to stop work on the Manor, countermand orders for materials, and
pull out with what he could. It wasn't such a great pile. There was a
construction shed on the property, fairly well built, and by running up
a chimney and having a well sunk, he had what passed for a home. There
in the builder's shack Private Ben has been living ever since. He has
stuck up a real estate sign and spends most of his time layin' out his
acres of sand and marsh into impossible buildin' lots. As he's way off
on a back road, few people ever come by, but he never misses a chance of
tacklin' those that do and tryin' to wish a buildin' plot on 'em. That's
how we happen to know him so well, and to have kept up with his career.

On the way out we sort of revived F. Hallam Bean's memories of Private
Ben Riggs. First off he thought Ben had something to do with the Barbara
Freitchie stunt, or was he the one who jumped off Brooklyn Bridge? But
at last he got it straight. Yes, he remembered having had a picture of
Private Ben tacked up in his studio, only last year. Then we tried him
on Jack Binns, and Sergeant York and Lieutenant Blue and Dr. Cook. He
knew they'd all done something or other to make the first page, but his
guesses were kind of wide.

"I would like to see Private Ben, though," says F. Hallam. "Must be an
interesting chap."

"He is," says Mr. Robert. "His scrap books are interesting, too. He has
ten of them."

"By Jove!" says Hallam. "Good idea. I must tell Myrtle about that."

But after we'd been hailed by this lonesome lookin' party in baggy pants
and the faded blue yachtin' cap, and we'd let him lead us past the stone
foundations where a fine crop of weeds was coming up, and he'd herded
us into his shack and was tryin' to spring a blueprint prospectus on us,
F. Hallam sor