eal thing, all right.
I ain't never needed any one since that to tell me what war is.

The crowd was two thirds out before any one realized just what kind of
frightfulness was going on. Then, amid shot and shell that would still
fly from time to time, the bravest, that hadn't been able to fight their
way out, stood by and picked up the wounded under fire and helped brush
their clothes off. The groans of the sufferers mingled with the hiss of
escaping ketchup.

Genevieve May was in hysterics from the minute the first high-powered
gun was fired. She kept screaming for everyone to keep cool. And at
last, when they got some kind of order, she went into a perfectly new
fit because her Frenchman was missing. She kept it up till they found
the poor man. He was found, without his crutch, at the far end of the
hall, though no one has ever yet figgered how he could get there through
the frenzied mob. He was on a chair, weak and trembling, behind a fancy
quilt made by Grandma Watkins, containing over ten thousand pieces of
silk. He was greenish yellow in colour and his heart had gone wrong.

That'll show you this bombardment wasn't any joke. The poor man had been
exhausted by Cousin Egbert's well-meant efforts to show him something
exciting, and he was now suffering from sure-enough shell shock, which
he'd had before in more official circumstances.

He was a brave man; he'd fought like a tiger in the trenches, and had
later been shot down out of the air four times, and was covered with
wounds and medals and crosses; but this here enfilade at the fair hands
of the beautiful Madam Popper, coming in his weak state, had darn near
devastated what few nerves the war had left him.

It was a sad moment. Genevieve May was again exploding, like her own
handiwork, which wasn't through itself yet by any means, because a
solitary shot would come now and then, like the main enemy had retreated
but was leaving rear guards and snipers. Also, people that had had
exhibits in the art section and the fancy-work section was now setting
up yells of rage over their treasures that had been desecrated by the
far-flung ketchup.

But tender hands was leading the stricken Frenchman back of the lines to
a dressing station, and all was pretty near calm again, except for G.H.
Stultz, who was swearing--or words to that effect.

It really took a good hour to restore perfect calm and figure up the
losses. They was severe. Of course I don't mean to say the w