lings_.

"Here, I'll show you something else," said the stranger, noticing Tom's
interest in the buttons. He opened his bag and took out a couple of
apples, giving one to Tom. "You see that," he observed, holding up a
small crumpled piece of brass. "Know where I got that?" He rolled his
R's very noticeably in the manner peculiar to the country people of New
York State.

"What is it?" Tom asked.

"It's the cover of an ink-stand. You know what made it like that? A
Zeppelin! That was in a raid, that was. It came flying plunk out through
the front window--and it stuck right into a tree like a dagger. It might
have stuck in my head, only it didn't. I'm lucky--that's what our gun
crew says." He breathed on the crumpled souvenir and rubbed it on his
trousers to polish it. "See, it's got a kind of--initials, like--on it!
Everybody has their initials on things in England."

Tom took the little twisted ornamental cover in his hand and gazed at
it, fascinated.

"See? M. E. M.," continued the stranger. "That was near Whitehall, it
was; a little girl was sitting at a table writing her lessons; she was
just in the middle of a word--that's what I heard people in the crowd
say--when, kerflunk! down comes, the bomb through the roof and goes
right through the floor of the top room and hits right on the table!
_Go-o-d-night_ for that little girl!"

"Kill her?" Tom asked.

"Blew her all to pieces," said his companion, as he took the poor
little trinket and continued to polish it on his knee.

Of all that Tom Slade had read about the war, its grim cruelties, its
thousands slain and maimed, its victims struggling frantically in the
rough ocean, the poor starving wretches in Belgium, nothing had
impressed him so deeply nor seemed to bring the war so close to him as
this little crumpled piece of brass--the sad memorial of a little girl
who had been blown into eternity while she was studying her lessons. A
lump came up in his throat, and he stood watching his companion, and
saying nothing.

"That was the blond beast, that was," said the stranger. "I saw him
stickin' his old head out of the ocean, too, and we got a pop at him
last trip. Here, I'll show you something else."

Out of the bag he drew a photograph. "There; that's our gun crew; that's
Tommy Walters--he's the one says I'm a mascot. I'm taking him some
apples now. That feller there is Hobart. And that's old Billy Sunday
himself, right in the middle," he added, pointing to a