ed the other skeptically. "An' was ye wantin' the Scoot
to help ye chase ain puir wee Hoon? Sir-r, A' think shame on ye for
misusin' the puir laddie."

"There were four," protested Lasky.

"And yeer gun jammed, A'm thinkin', so wi' rair presence o' mind, ye
stood oop in the fuselage an' hit the nairest representative of the
Imperial Gairman Air Sairvice a crack over the heid wi' a spanner."

A little group began to form at the door of the mess-room, for the news
that Tam the Scoot was "up" was always sufficient to attract an
audience. As for the victim of Tam's irony, his eyes were dancing with
glee.

"Dismayed or frichtened by this apparition of the supermon i' the
air-r," continued Tam in the monotonous tone he adopted when he was
evolving one of his romances, "the enemy fled, emittin' spairks an'
vapair to hide them from the veegilant ee o' young Mr. Lasky, the Boy
Avenger, oor the Terror o' the Fairmament. They darted heether and
theether wi' their remorseless pairsuer on their heels an' the seenister
sound of his bullets whistlin' in their lugs. Ain by ain the enemy is
defeated, fa'ing like Lucifer in a flamin' shrood. Soodenly Mr. Lasky
turns verra pale. Heavens! A thocht has strook him. Where is Tam the
Scoot? The horror o' the thocht leaves him braithless; an' back he
tairns an' like a hawk deeps sweeftly but gracefully into the
aerodrome--saved!"

"Bravo, Tam!" They gave him his due reward with great handclapping and
Tam bowed left and right, his forage cap in his hand.

"Folks," he said, "ma next pairformance will be duly annoonced."

* * * * *

Tam came from the Clyde. He was not a ship-builder, but was the
assistant of a man who ran a garage and did small repairs. Nor was he,
in the accepted sense of the word, a patriot, because he did not enlist
at the beginning of the war. His boss suggested he should, but Tam
apparently held other views, went into a shipyard and was "badged and
reserved."

They combed him out of that, and he went to another factory, making a
false statement to secure the substitution of the badge he had lost. He
was unmarried and had none dependent on him, and his landlord, who had
two sons fighting, suggested to Tam that though he'd hate to lose a good
lodger, he didn't think the country ought to lose a good soldier.

Tam changed his lodgings.

He moved to Glasgow and was insulted by a fellow workman with the name
of coward. Tam hammered his f