relieved by the
emergency drills, manning the boats and so forth.

In the afternoon hours of respite from his duties he met Frenchy, whose
patience had been a little tried by some of Uncle Sam's crack jolliers,
and they sat down on the top step of a companionway and talked.

"Zis I cannot bear!" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "To be called ze
Hun! Ugh!"

"They're only kidding you," said Tom; "fooling with you."

"I do not like it--no!"

"But if you hadn't become an American before the war," said Tom, "you
couldn't have enlisted on our side because you really were a German--a
German citizen--weren't you?"

"Subject, yess! Citizen, no! All will be changed. Alsace will be France
again! We go to win her back! Yess?"

"Yes," said Tom. "I only meant you belonged to Germany because you
couldn't help it."

"You are a lucky boy," Frenchy said earnestly. "Zare is no--what you
say?--Mix-up; Zhermany, France, America--no. You are all _American_!"

"I got to remember that," said Tom simply. "I know some rich fellers
home where I live. They let me join their scout troop, so I got to know
'em. One feller's name is Van Arlen. His father was born in Holland.
They got two automobiles and a lot of servants and things. But anyway my
father was born in the United States--that's one thing."

"Ah," said Frenchy, enthusiastically, "zat is ever'ting! You are fine
boy."

His expression was so generous, so pleasant, that Tom could not help
saying, "I like France, too."

"Listen, I will tell you," said Frenchy, laughing. "It is ze old saying,
'Ever' man hass two countries; hees own and France!' You see?"

In the warmth of Frenchy's generous admiration Tom opened up and said
more than he had meant to say--more than he ever had said to anyone.

"So I got to be proud of it, anyway," he said, in his honest, blunt
fashion. "Maybe you won't understand, but one thing makes me like to go
away from Bridgeboro, kind of, is the way people say things about my
folks. They don't do it on purpose--mostly. But anyway, all the fathers
of the fellows I know, they call them Mr. Blakeley and Mr. Harris, and
like that. But they always called my father Bill Slade. I didn't ever
hear anybody call him Mister. But anyway, he was born in the United
States--that's one sure thing. And so was my grandfather and my
grandmother, too. Once my father licked me because I forgot to hang out
the flag on Decoration Day. That shows he was patriotic, doesn't it? Th