cted it before!

Somehow I dragged back to the office, and a while later Mr. Ellins
discovers me slumped in my chair with my chin down.

"Mars and Mercury!" says he. "You haven't been through a battle so soon,
have you?"

At that, I tries to brace up a bit and pass it off light.

"Why didn't someone tell me I was a chronic invalid?" says I, after
sketchin' out how my entry had been scratched by the chesty one. "I
wonder where I could get a pair of crutches and a light-runnin' wheel
chair?"

"Bah!" says he. "Some of those army officers have red-tape brains and no
more common sense than he guinea-pigs. What in the name of the Seven
Shahs did he think was the matter with you?"

"My eyes don't track and I weigh under the scale," says I. "I expect
there's other things, too. Maybe my floatin' ribs are water-logged and
my memory muscle-bound. But I'm a wreck, all right."

"We'll see about that," says Old Hickory, pushin' a buzzer.

And inside of an hour I felt a lot better. I'd been gone over by a life
insurance expert, who said I hadn't a soft spot on me, and an eye
specialist had reported that my sight was up to the average. Oh, the
right lamp did range a little further, but he claims that's often the
case.

"Maybe my hair was too vivid for trench work," says I, "or else that
captain was luggin' a grouch. Makes me feel like a wooden nickel at the
bottom of the till, just the same; for I did hope I might be useful
somehow. I'll look swell joinin' the home guards, won't I?"

"Don't overlook the fact, young man," puts in Old Hickory, "that the
Corrugated Trust is not altogether out of this affair, and that we are
running short-handed as it is."

I was too sore in my mind to be soothed much by that thought just then,
though I did buckle into the work harder than ever.

As for Vee, she don't have much to say, but she gives me the close
tackle when she hears the news.

"I don't care!" says she. "It was splendid of you to want to go. And I
shall be just as proud of you as though you had been accepted."

"Oh, sure!" says I. "Likely I'll be mentioned in despatches for the
noble way I handled the correspondence all through a hot spell."

That state of mind I didn't shake loose in a hurry, either. For three or
four weeks, there, I was about the meekest commuter carried on the
eight-three. I didn't do any gloatin' over the war news. I didn't join
any of the volunteer boards of strategy that met every mornin' to tell
e