"You chose a hot branch of the service, all right," commented Tom. "If you were looking for excitement I guess you got it."
"You're a good guesser," grinned Will. "When you're climbing over trenches and crashing through walls and rooting up trees, with bullets pattering against the sides like hailstones on a roof, the fellow who can't get enough excitement out of it is pretty hard to please. But come along, you fellows, and I'll show you over the old shebang if you care to look at it."
They needed no second invitation, and for the next half hour there was a volley of questions and answers as they examined the offensive and defensive qualities of the grim monster that had carried consternation into the German ranks.
"Well, so long, fellows," said Will, when at last he climbed into the tank and set its unwieldy bulk in motion. "Here's hoping that we meet again soon."
"In Berlin, if not sooner!" Frank shouted after him.
A few days later one of the French colonels visited the camp. After his formal reception by the American officers he made a tour of inspection, going among the men, looking over the barracks and asking innumerable questions.
There was an absence of pomp and ceremony about him that was characteristic of the French officers who, perhaps more than those of any other nation, live on terms of simple comradeship with their men, and the boys, to use Billy's phrase, "cottoned to him" at once.
Unfortunately he knew little English and as the boys knew still less French, conversation was halting and difficult. The officer's delight then, can be imagined when, on addressing a question to Frank, the latter responded in French as pure as his own.
"Why, my boy," said Colonel Pavet, "you speak as though you were a son of France."
"A stepson, perhaps," replied Frank, smilingly. "For my mother is a daughter of France!"