trip and get seasick, probably, just to fool
round with automobiles. I'm going to be out where you are--plain
fighting. So remember this--I don't know a thing about cars or motors.
Never saw one till I come into the Army."

"You're on!" said Spike. "Now let's eat while we can. They tell me over
in the war your meals is often late."

They ate at T-bone Tommy's, consuming a vast quantity of red meat with
but a minor accompaniment of vegetables. They were already soldiers.
They fought during the meal several sharp engagements, from which they
emerged without a scratch.

"We'll be takin' a lot of long chances, kid," cautioned Spike. "First
thing we know--they might be saying it to us with flowers."

"Let 'em talk!" said the buoyant Wilbur. "Of course we'll get into
trouble sooner or later."

"Sure!" agreed Spike. "Way I look at it, I got about one good fight left
in me. All I hope is, it'll be a humdinger."

Later they wandered along River Street, surveying the little town with
new eyes. They were far off---"over where the war was taking place," as
Spike neatly put it--surveying at that long range the well-remembered
scene; revisiting it from some remote spot where perhaps it had been
said to them with flowers.

"We'd ought to tell Herman Vielhaber," said Spike. "Herman's a Heinie,
but he's a good scout at that."

"Sure!" agreed Wilbur.

They found Herman alone at one of his tables staring morosely at an
untouched glass of beer. The Vielhaber establishment was already
suffering under the stigma of pro-Germanism put upon it by certain of
the watchful towns-people. Judge Penniman, that hale old invalid, had
even declared that Herman was a spy, and signalled each night to other
spies by flapping a curtain of his lighted room above the saloon. The
judge had found believers, though it was difficult to explain just what
information Herman would be signalling and why he didn't go out and tell
it to his evil confederates by word of mouth. Herman often found trade
dull of an evening now, since many of his old clients would patronize
his rival, Pegleg McCarron; for Pegleg was a fervent patriot who
declared that all Germans ought to be in hell. Herman greeted the
newcomers with troubled cordiality.

"Sed down, you boys. What you have? Sasspriller? All right! Mamma, two
sassprillers for these young men."

Minna Vielhaber brought the drink from the bar. Minna had red eyes, and
performed her service in silence, after which