“But this is a Japanese spread, you see,” laughed Mary Louise, “with Japanese napkins and tablecloths, Japanese crab salad, and so forth, and you know the Japs count their kids’ birthdays from the time they are born and a new born Japanese baby is one year old.”
“I sit corrected,” said Billy. “When do we eat?”
“Isn’t he the limit?” asked James Drake, another one of Danny’s chums who had fought with him in the Dorfield regiment. “I have never seen the likes of Billy for feeding his face.”
“Some faces are meant to be fed,” suggested Bob Dulaney, the young newspaper man who had made such an impression on Margaret Wright the evening before at the dance. “Billy’s face is that kind of face, one crying out to be fed. I was sure relieved when the armistice was signed before Billy got a chance to catch a bomb in that mouth of his.”
Billy grinned delightedly at this sally. His mouth was large, but it was saved from ugliness by thirty-two perfect teeth.
“What’s the use of my coming safe out of the trenches if you shoot off your gab and hit me in my fatal spot, you old ink pot?”
Bob Dulaney was, like Danny Dexter, not a native of Dorfield, but he had fought with that regiment during the war and after peace was declared had drifted to the spot where so many of his friends lived and, having obtained a position on the Recorder, had decided to settle in the pleasant old town. He was a delightful young man, full of wit and humor and quite as popular with the regiment as Danny himself. He had joined Danny in his undertaking of doing the carpentering and plumbing for the girls, although he was well known to have absolutely no mechanical skill.
“The only nail Bob ever hits on the head is a verbal one,” Danny explained, “but he hits them all right. He has come along to help lift and carry, not that he is much on that, unless it is an argument which is to be carried on.”
“He is some lifter too,” suggested Tim Turner, one of the other young men.
“Right you are!” laughed James Drake. “Remember the old cock he lifted off the roost that night on the outskirts of Nancy?”