ome."

"But at least you can get away long enough to have dinner with us," says
mother.

"Nothing doin'," says Wilfred. "Can't get out unless Quigley signs a
pass, and he won't."

"Oh, come!" says I. "He don't look so bad as all that. Let me see what I
can do with him."

Well, after I'd chased the ladies back to the hotel with instructions to
wait hopeful, I hunts up Top Sergeant Quigley. Had quite a revealin'
chat with him, too. Come to look at him close after he'd washed up, he's
rather decent appearin'. Face seems sort of familiar, too.

"Didn't you play first base for the Fordhams?" I asks.

"Oh, that was back in '14," says he.

"As I remember," says I, "you was some star on the bag, though. Now,
about young Bliss. Case of mommer's pet, you know."

"He had that tag all over him," says Quigley. "But we're knockin' a lot
of that out of him. He's comin' on."

"Good!" says I. "Would it stop the process to let him off for an evenin'
with the folks--dinner and so on?"

"Why, no; I guess not," says Quigley. "Might do him good. But he must
apply himself. Send him along."

So a half hour later I sat on a cot in the cow-barn and watched Wilfred,
fresh from the shower bath, get into his army uniform.

"Say," he remarks, strugglin' through his khaki shirt, "I didn't think
old Quig would do it."

"Seemed glad to," says I. "Said you was comin' on fine."

"He did?" gasps Wilfred. "Quigley? Well, what do you know!"

Not such a bad imitation of a soldier, Wilfred, when he'd laced up the
leggins and got the snappy-cut coat buttoned tight. He's some different
from what he was when sister first discovered him. And we had quite a
gay dinner together.

First off mother was for campin' right down there indefinitely, where
she could see her darlin' boy every day; but between Wilfred and me we
persuaded her different. I expect the hotel quarters had something to do
with it, too. Anyway, after Wilfred had promised to try for a couple of
days off soon, for a visit home, she consents to start back in the
mornin'.

"What I dread most, Wilfred," says she, "is leaving you at the mercy of
that horrid sergeant."

"Oh, I'll get along with him somehow," says Wilfred. "I'm goin' to try,
anyway."

And right there, as I understand it, Wilfred Stanton Bliss started to be
a man and a soldier. He had a long way to go, though, it seemed to me.

So here the other day, only a couple of weeks since we made our trip,
I'm some surprise