re cutting no ice in this show; you're only on as a super."

The woman somewhat naturally did not understand a word; but O'Shea had
a way with women and children, wherein lay the charm of his strange
mixture of character.

"Now these eggs, mother dear, these eggs. Bedad! they've gone to their
last long rest. We can't even scramble them. Oofs, dear heart, oofs;
napoo--finis."

"_C'est tout napoo._" She even laughed as she looked at the
concentrated essence of yellow and white flowing slowly down the
gutter. "_Mon Dieu! voila une autre._" Another thunderous roar;
another belching, choking cloud of dust and death, and a house on the
other side of the square collapsed.

"It's no aeroplane, sir," said Jimmy, with his eyes on the sky. "It's
a long-range gun, or I'm a Dutchman." He looked down to find a little
girl clasping his knee and whimpering. "And phwat is it, me angel?"
He caught her up in his arms and laughed. "Shure! and I've forgotten
me little glass of stuff. Come along with me and find it."

He strode away, only to return with her in a second or two, laughing
all over her face. Yes--he had a way with him, had Jimmy O'Shea.

But it was in the final tableau of that morning's work that I remember
him best. It was a long-range gun as he said; and they put in fifteen
twelve-inch shells in an hour, round about the square. Two got the
hospital, and one hit a barber's shop where an officer was being
shaved. I remember we saw him with half his face lathered, and later
on we found his hand still gripping the arm of the chair. As for the
barber--God knows----

We sorted out the remnants of some children from the debris of one
house; and I left O'Shea after a while with a little kid of eight or
nine in his arms. She was booked for God's nursery, and the passing
was not going to be easy, for she was hit--nastily. And it was while
Jimmy was nursing the poor torn atom with the tenderness of a woman
that another sergeant of his battalion came on the scene to see if he
could help.

"God! Jimmy," I heard him say, "this makes one sick."

"Sick!" O'Shea's voice was quiet. "Sick! I've stuck many of them,
thank the powers, but never again--never again, my bucko--will it be
anywhere save in the stomach. Anything else is too quick."

I looked at his face; and I understood. . . .

Yes--I understood because I had seen: otherwise, I should not. He
would have been talking another language--one to which I