form; the leather jacket, which made him look like some
craftsman; the jaunty cap, which emphasized the high cheek-bones in the
lean face. Both his face and his figure being spare, he promised energy.
He had the knack of making a sensation whenever he appeared. Only a few
among mortals are gifted that way. Most of us have to get our own
slippers and light our own cigars. But he was able to convey the idea
that it was a privilege to serve him. The busy superintendent of the
hospital, a charming Italian woman, cooked special meals for him, and
served them in his room, so that he would not be contaminated by contact
with the Ambulance Corps, a noisy, breezy group. A boy scout pulled his
boots off and on for him, oiled his machine, and cranked his motor. The
lean cheeks filled out, the restless, audacious, roving eyes tamed down.
A sleekness settled over his whole person. It was like discovering a
hungry, prowling night cat, homeless and winning its meat by combat, and
bringing that cat to the fireside and supplying it with copious cream,
and watching it fill out and stretch itself in comfort.

There was a song just then that had a lilting chorus. It told of 'Rollo,
the Apollo, the King of the Swells.' So the Corps named their new member
Rollo. How wonderful he was with his pride of bearing, and the insolent
way of him. He moved like an Olympian through the herd of shabby little
scrambling folk.

"Is it ever hot out your way?" queried Rollo during one of Mrs.
Bracher's flying visits to Furnes.

"I could hardly call it hot," replied the nurse. "The walls of our
house, that is, the fragments of them left standing, are full of
shrapnel. The road outside our door is dented with shell holes. Every
house in the village is shot full of metal. There's a battery of seven
Belgian guns spitting away in our back-yard. But we don't call it hot,
because we hate to exaggerate."

"I'll have to come out and see you," he said, with a smile.

He became a frequent visitor at Pervyse.

"Rollo is wonderful," exclaimed Hilda.

"How wonderful?" asked Mrs. Bracher.

"Only to-day," explained Hilda, "he showed me his field-glasses, which
he had taken from the body of a German officer whom he killed at
Alost."

"That's true," corroborated Scotch, "and once in his room at the
hospital he showed me a sable helmet. Scarlet cloth and gold braid, and
the hussar fur all over it. It's a beauty. I wish he'd give it to me."

"How did he get it?" as