or brought the news to me, with a queer expression on
his face.

"It doesn't look good, Dominie," he said. "You know, my old friend,
Death, is a shrewd picker. He's got an eye for men." He mused, rubbing
his tousled, brickish locks with a nervous hand. "I was getting to kind
of like that young pup," he muttered moodily.

The saying that no news is good news was surely concocted by some one
who never chafed through day after lengthening day for that which does
not come. But in the end it did come, in the form of a scrawl from the
Weeping Scion himself. He was mending, but very slowly, and they said it
would be a long time--months, perhaps--before he could get back to the
front. Meantime, they were still picking odds and ends, chiefly
metallic, out of various parts of his system.

"I'm one of the guys you read about that came over here to collect
souvenirs," he commented. "Well, I've got all I need of 'em. They can
have the rest. All I want now is to get back and present a few to
Fritzie before the show is over."

Thereafter the Little Red Doctor exhibited, but read to us only in small
parts, quite bulky communications from overseas. Some of them, it became
known, he was forwarding to our little Mary, out in the Far West. With
her answer came the solution.

"Some of the 'Grass and Asphalt' sketches are wonders; some not so good.
I am going to try out 'Doggy' if I can find a poodle with enough
intelligence to support me. But you need not have been so mysterious,
Doc, about your 'young amateur writer who seems to have some talent.'
Did you think I would not know it was David? Why, bless your dear, silly
heart, I told him some of those stories myself. But how does he get a
chance to write them? Is he back on this side? Or is he invalided? Or
what? Tell me. I want to know about him. You do not have to worry about
my--well, my infatuation for him, any more. He was a pretty boy, though,
wasn't he? But I have seen too many of that kind in the picture game.
I'm spoiled for them. How I would love to smear some of their pretty,
smirky faces! They give me a queer feeling in my breakfast. Excuse me: I
forgot I was a lady. But don't say 'pretty' to me any more. I'm through.
At that, you were all wrong about Buddy. He was a lot decenter than you
thought: only he was brought up wrong. Give him my love as one pal to
another. I hope he don't come back a He-ro. I'm offen he-roes, too.
Excuse again!"

Wars and exiles alike come to an