k. They bestowed on him
the low epithets with which they expressed admiration. Red worked at one
of the bleaching vats in the Hatton paper mill. The story of Buzz's
fistic triumph had spread through the big plant like a flame.

"Go on, Buzz, tell 'em about it," Red urged, now. "Je's, I like to died
laughing when I heard it. He must of looked a sight, the poor boob. Go
on, Buzz, tell 'em how you says to him he must be a kind of delicate
piece of--you know; go on, tell 'em."

Buzz hitched himself up with a characteristic gesture, and plunged into
his story. His audience listened entranced, interrupting him with an
occasional "Je's!" of awed admiration. But the thing seemed to lack a
certain something. Perhaps Casey put his finger on that something when,
at the recital's finish he asked:

"Didn't he see you was goin' to hit him?"

"No. He never see a thing."

Casey ruminated a moment. "You could of give him a chanst to put up his
dukes," he said at last. A little silence fell upon the group. Honour
among thieves.

Buzz shifted uncomfortably. "He's a bigger guy than I am. I bet he's
over six foot. The papers was always telling how he played football at
that college he went to."

Casey spoke up again. "They say he didn't wait for this here draft. He's
goin' to Fort Sheridan, around Chicago somewhere, to be made a officer."

"Yeh, them rich guys, they got it all their own way," Spider spoke up,
gloomily. "They--"

From down the street came a dull, muffled thud-thud-thud-thud. Already
Chippewa, Wisconsin, had learned to recognise it. Grand Avenue, none too
crowded on this mid-week night, pressed to the curb to see. Down the
street they stared toward the moving mass that came steadily nearer. The
listless group on the corner stiffened into something like interest.

"Company G," said Red. "I hear they're leavin' in a couple of days."

And down the street they came, thud-thud-thud, Company G, headed for the
new red-brick Armory for the building of which they had engineered
everything from subscription dances and exhibition drills to turkey
raffles. Chippewa had never taken Company G very seriously until now.
How could it, when Company G was made up of Willie Kemp, who clerked in
Hassell's shoe store; Fred Garvey, the reporter on the Chippewa
_Eagle_; Hermie Knapp, the real-estate man, and Earl Hanson who came
around in the morning for your grocery order.

Thud-thud-thud-thud. And to Chippewa, standing at the curb, q