"Here's some raspberry jam, Bob. Put it on the muffins."
"A little more bacon, I guess, now, Mr. Bob? And a poached egg?"
"Look here," Bob remarked at last in self-defense, "if I eat like this for a week I'll have to buy new uniforms, and I can't afford to."
"Oh, pooh, it wouldn't hurt you to gain a few pounds," scoffed Lucy, looking at Bob's long legs sprawled under the table in their close-fitting breeches and shining leather leggings.
The War Department granted to the graduates of the class of 1918 a week's leave, but reserved the privilege of curtailing it by further orders. This reservation took away a good share of Lucy's pleasure in Bob's company, and kept her from planning anything with real enjoyment. It made Bob feel, as he described it, like a train on a time-table marked, "Subject to change without notice."
Bob lingered over his breakfast, enjoying to the full the right to get up when he pleased and decide leisurely what he wanted to do. But presently the whir of an airplane passing over the house made him jump nimbly up and run outdoors.
"That's where I'm going this morning," he declared, following the diminishing speck with eager eyes. "I want to see the aviation school. It's on the new land beyond the Infantry Quarters, isn't it, Lucy?"
"Yes, over by the sea-wall. But don't go and get crazy about aviation, Bob, the way all the young officers do," frowned Lucy, who shared the popular delusion that aviation is the most dangerous arm of the service in war.
Bob had followed his father and chosen Infantry. He had graduated fairly high and might have had Coast or Field Artillery, but a general impression that Infantry was most wanted in France had led to a sudden rush for it by the two classes graduated in 1917.