“A dinner-party! We should astonish them, so that we’d never hear the last of it.”
“Well, why not? Didn’t some of us ‘celebrate’ the Fourth at Brashear? and didn’t we have a Thanksgiving dinner at Camp Groce? I have great faith in dinners. Why can’t we have a New Year’s dinner here?”
“For the best of all reasons, because there’s nothing to eat. There we had milk and eggs and potatoes and onions and a turkey, and——”
“The turkey was a windfall, and didn’t come till we had determined to observe the day, and Dillingham had issued his proclamation.”
“And pumpkin and pecan nuts, and beef.”
“Well, I’m sure we have beef.”
“Yes, we have, look at the stuff, look at it,” and our friend pointed to a dark, dry-looking, fatless lump, that hung from a rafter. “We have got beef, and we have got flour, and sugar, and bacon, and those are all.”
“Something may turn up if we resolve on it.”
“‘Something may turn up!’ Yes, it may, and when it turns up, we’ll give a party.”
All agreed to this common sense conclusion, except two obstinate members of the mess, and they were Lieutenant Dane, of the signal corps, and myself.