“They go into the discard,” answered Bob, who, it seems, had been making inquiries. “I suppose we can send ’em home and have ’em kept for us until after the war.”
“That’s what I’m going to do,” declared Ned. “This is a good suit, though it looks a bit mussy now. I’m not going to throw it away.”
“You might as well,” put in Jerry.
“Why so? This war may not last as long as we think,” Ned made comment. “And suits, and everything else, will be a lot higher after it’s over. Might as well save what I can. Don’t see why it won’t do me any good.”
“Because it won’t fit you,” Jerry returned. “Don’t you know what our captain told us? He said the new uniforms we get will hang on some of us like bags for a while, but when we fill out our muscles by the exercise and drill, we’ll fill out the uniforms, too.
“Now your tailor, Ned, and I will say he is a good one, made your civilian suit to fit you. In other words he favored you. He padded the hollow places and so on. But in a couple of months you’ll fill out so that the suit you’re wearing now will look like a set of hand-me-downs from the Bowery in New York.”
“Well, I’ll send it home, anyhow,” decided Ned.
“Yes, it may come in handy for your mother’s charity work,” agreed Jerry.
Before going to the tailor shop, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with others of the recruits, were measured. These measurements were standardized, so that when each young man went in to get his uniform, the officer in charge merely called off a certain number to designate coat, trousers, hat and so on.