"Well, try to forget all that just now," said Tom. "I've a nice little surprise for you, Jack. I suppose you know they've got a sort of 'Y' hut running back here a bit?"
"Heard some of the fellows talking about it, but, somehow, didn't seem to take much stock in the news. Fact is, I've temporarily lost my taste for those doughnuts and the girls who give their time to jollying up our fellows, as well as attending to their many wants in the line of letter writing and such things."
"Perhaps," insinuated Tom, with a mild grin, "a doughnut mightn't go so badly now if the girl who offered it happened to answer to the name of Bessie?"
At that Jack suddenly began to show more interest. A gleam came into his saddened eyes and a faint smile to his face.
"That's an altogether different thing, Tom!" he exclaimed. "Do you really mean that Bessie and Mrs. Gleason are so close as all that?"
"If you care to walk out with me you can be talking to them inside of fifteen minutes," came the ready answer. "And while about it, I might as well tell you that Nellie is there too. Seems that she's attached to a field hospital staff that's keeping us close company, and, meeting the Gleasons, came over for the evening. She's been overworked lately, and needs some rest. I promised to come back for a short while, and fetch you along."
"Did—er, Bessie ask you to look me up?" asked Jack confusedly.
"To be sure! Twice at least. And I had to promise solemnly I'd do it even if I had to take you by the collar and hustle you there. But our time is limited, and we'd better be on our way, Jack."
The other showed an astonishing return to his old form. Apparently the mere fact that he was about to see the Gleasons again caused him to forget, temporarily at least, all about his fresh troubles. They were soon hurrying along, now and then dropping flat as some shell shrieked overhead or burst with a crash not far away.
Their relations with Mrs. Gleason and Bessie were very remarkable, and of a character to bind them close together in friendship. In fact, as has been described at length in one of the earlier books of this series, Tom and Jack had been mainly instrumental in releasing the mother and young daughter from a chateau where they were being held prisoner by an unscrupulous and plotting relative, with designs on their fortune.