The Workings of System D.
"These duds"—indicating his international collection of garments—"I know they look funny, but what can a man do? Well, it all works out right enough by what the French call 'System D'—shift for yourself. We start out under the U.S., and we draw some—just some—clothes from them. Then they turn us over to the French gov'ment to run this here line up to the front, see? French gov'ment gives us more clothes—some. Then along come some Canucks—damn decent chaps, too, and more like Americans than anything else they've got over here—and they want to trade off with us for some stuff. That's where the coat come from. This red dicer"—pointing to the fez—"I copped off'n a nigger. Funny kind of coon he was, too; couldn't talk English, only French; and we had to teach him how to shoot crap!
"But we got three complete Uncle Sam uniforms, in three different sizes, for the use of the whole outfit. Y'see, three men from our comp'ny get leave in Paree every week, and they just nachhully got to look right when they go down there. So they match, and the odd man has the pick of the three suits, so's he can take the one that fits him. Then the other two flip up, and the guy that don't call it has to take what's left. Gen'rally he's outer luck.
"Look at this engine o' mine," continued the engineer, pointing to the big Baldwin locomotive beside him. "Is't she a pippin, though? These little French ones look like fleas up alongside an elephant aside of her. They're forty-five like her in the same lot, bought by the French for $45,000 a throw, and turned out at the works in Philly in twenty days. They're owned by the French now, but they've got the good old 'U.S.A.' right up there on the water-tender. See it?" He obliged with his flashlight. "Pull? They can handle 166,000 pounds without batting an eye!