d the newcomer. It could be seen that his
memory was stirred, but his eyes told him nothing; he had a complaining
air of saying one met so many people. It was beyond one to place them
all. He whimpered when his ears were rubbed, seeming to recall a
familiar touch. Then with a deep sigh he fell asleep once more. His
master took up the suitcase and gained, without further encounters, the
little room in the side-yard house. Yet he did not linger here. He kept
seeing a small, barefoot boy who rummaged in a treasure box labelled
"Cake." This boy made him uncomfortable. He went round to the front of
the other house. On the porch, behind the morning-glory vine, Judge
Penniman in his wicker chair languidly fanned himself, studying a
thermometer held in his other hand. He glanced up sharply.

"Well, come back, did you?"

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur, and sat on the top step to fan himself with his
hat. "Warm, isn't it?"

The judge brightened.

"Warm? Warm ain't any name for it! We been having a hot spell nobody
remembers the like of, man nor boy, for twenty years. Why, day before
yesterday--say, I wish you'd been here! Talk about suffering! I was
having one of my bad days, and the least little thing I'd do I'd be
panting like a tuckered hound. Say, how was the war?"

"Oh, so-so," answered the returned private.

"You tell it well. Seems to me if I'd been off skyhootin' round in
foreign lands--say, how about them French women? Pretty bold lot, I
guess, if you can believe all you--"

The parrot in its cage at the end of the porch climbed to a perch with
beak and claw.

"Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle!" it screeched. The judge glared
murderously at it.

"Wilbur Cowan, you bad, bad, bad child--not to let us know!" Mrs.
Penniman threw back the screen door and rushed to embrace him. "You
regular fighting so-and-so!" she sobbed.

"Where'd you get that talk?" he demanded.

Mrs. Penniman wiped her eyes with a dish towel suspended from one arm.

"Oh, we heard all about you!"

She was warm, and shed gracious aromas. The returned one sniffed these.

"It's chops," he said--"and--and hot biscuits."

"And radishes from the garden, and buttermilk and clover honey and
raspberries, and--let me see--"

"Let's go!" said the soldier.

"Then you can tell us all about that war," said the invalid as with
groans he raised his bulk from the wicker chair.

"What war?" asked Wilbur.

* * * * *

He spe