ent into the war and Tom started off to work on a transport. So you see
how it worked out; Connie Bennett, new leader of the Elks presently had
an Eagle Scout in his patrol and Tom got himself torpedoed. Mind, I
don't say that Uncle Sam went into the war just to spite Tom Slade. The
point is that Tom Slade didn't get anything, except that he got
torpedoed.

One thing he did win for himself as a scout and that was the Gold Cross
for life saving, but he didn't know how to wear it, and it was Margaret
Eillson who pinned it on for him properly. I think she had a sneaking
liking for Tom.

Poor Tom, sometime or other in his stumbling career he had probably
gotten out of the wrong side of his bed, or perhaps he was born on a
Friday. That was what Roy and the scouts always said.

And so you see, here he was back from the big scrap with nothing to show
for it but a case of shell-shock, and you don't have bandages or
crutches for shell-shock. There was young Lieut. Rossie Bent who worked
downstairs in the bank, who had come home with two fingers missing and
all of the girls had fallen at his feet and Tom had had to salute him.
But there was nothing missing about Tom--except his wits and his grip on
himself, sometimes.

But no one noticed this particularly, unless it was Mr. Burton and
Margaret Ellison, and certainly no one made a fuss over him on account
of it. Why should anybody make a hero of a young fellow just because he
is not quite sure of himself in crossing the street, and because his
mouth twitches? Boy scouts are both observant and patriotic, but they
could not see that there was anything _missing_ about Tom. All they had
noticed was that in resuming his duties at the office he had seemed to
be drifting away from them--from the troop. And when he came on Friday
nights, just to sit and hear Roy jolly Peewee and to enjoy their simple
nonsense, they thought he was "different since he had come back from
France"--perhaps just a little, you know, _uppish_.

It would have been a lucky thing for Tom, and for everybody concerned,
if Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster, had been at home instead of away on a
business trip; for he would have understood.

But of course, things couldn't have gone that way--not with Lucky Luke.

CHAPTER V

ABOUT SEEING A THING THROUGH

But there was one lucky thing that Tom had done, once upon a time. He
had hit Pete Connegan plunk on the head with a rotten tomato.

That was before the war;