rette
butts for that matter, but you can't pick up flour."

The commissary steward suddenly handed me a piece of paper upon which
he had been writing frantically.

"Take this to your P.O.," he said shrilly, "and take yourself along
with it.

"A defect in the sack," I gasped, departing.

"And there's a defect in you," he shouted after me, "your brain is
exempted."

"Take this man and kill him if you can find any slight technical
excuse for it," the note ran, "and if you can't kill him, give him an
inaptitude discharge with my compliments, and if you are unable to do
either of these two things, at least keep him away from my outfit. We
don't want to see his silly face around here any more at all."

The P.O. read it to me with great delight.

"I guess we'll have to send you to Siberia after all," he said
thoughtfully, "only that country is in far too delicate a condition
for you to meddle with at present. Go away to somewhere where I can't
see you," he continued bitterly, "for I feel inclined to do you an
injury, something permanent and serious." I went right away.

_Aug. 11th._ Mother has just paid one of her belligerent visits to the
camp, and as a consequence I am on the point of having a flock of
brainstorms. Some misguided person had been telling her about the
Officer Training School up here, and she arrived fired with the
ambition to enter me into that institution without further delay.
True to form, she bounded headlong into the matter without consulting
my feelings by accosting the very first commissioned officer she met.
He happened to be an Ensign, but he might as well have been a
Vice-Admiral for all Mother cared.

"Tell me, young man," she said to this Ensign, going directly to the
point, "do you see any reason why my boy Oswald should not go to that
place where they make all the Ensigns?"

"Yes," said the officer firmly, "I do."

"Oh, you do," snapped Mother angrily, "and pray tell me what that
reason might be?"

"Your son Oswald," replied the Ensign laconically.

"What!" exclaimed Mother, "you mean to say that my Oswald is not good
enough to go to your silly old school?"

"No," replied the Ensign, weakening pitifully before the withering
fury of an aroused mother, "but you see, my dear madam, he has not a
first class rating."

"Fiddlesticks!" said Mother.

"Crossed anchors," replied the Ensign.

"I didn't mean that," continued Mother, "I think the whole thing is
very mysterious and s