"Plain fighting!" echoed Wilbur. "And I'll tell you another thing. From what I hear they might put me to driving a car, but you bet I ain't going to take that long trip and get seasick, probably, just to fool round with automobiles. I'm going to be out where you are—plain fighting. So remember this—I don't know a thing about cars or motors. Never saw one till I come into the Army."
"You're on!" said Spike. "Now let's eat while we can. They tell me over in the war your meals is often late."
They ate at T-bone Tommy's, consuming a vast quantity of red meat with but a minor accompaniment of vegetables. They were already soldiers. They fought during the meal several sharp engagements, from which they emerged without a scratch.
"We'll be takin' a lot of long chances, kid," cautioned Spike. "First thing we know—they might be saying it to us with flowers."
"Let 'em talk!" said the buoyant Wilbur. "Of course we'll get into trouble sooner or later."
"Sure!" agreed Spike. "Way I look at it, I got about one good fight left in me. All I hope is, it'll be a humdinger."
Later they wandered along River Street, surveying the little town with new eyes. They were far off---"over where the war was taking place," as Spike neatly put it—surveying at that long range the well-remembered scene; revisiting it from some remote spot where perhaps it had been said to them with flowers.
"We'd ought to tell Herman Vielhaber," said Spike. "Herman's a Heinie, but he's a good scout at that."
"Sure!" agreed Wilbur.
They found Herman alone at one of his tables staring morosely at an untouched glass of beer. The Vielhaber establishment was already suffering under the stigma of pro-Germanism put upon it by certain of the watchful towns-people. Judge Penniman, that hale old invalid, had even declared that Herman was a spy, and signalled each night to other spies by flapping a curtain of his lighted room above the saloon. The judge had found believers, though it was difficult to explain just what information Herman would be signalling and why he didn't go out and tell it to his evil confederates by word of mouth. Herman often found trade dull of an evening now, since many of his old clients would patronize his rival, Pegleg McCarron; for Pegleg was a fervent patriot who declared that all Germans ought to be in hell. Herman greeted the newcomers with troubled cordiality.