In the great Meuse-Argonne advance two doughboys were squatted in a shell hole for shelter. In another minute or two they expected an order to go forward again against the German positions. The enemy was pouring everything he had in their direction. Machine-gun bullets were whining by just above their heads. High explosives and shrapnel shells were bursting about them. Hundreds of guns, big and little, roared and thundered.
One of the soldiers turned his head toward his companion.
“Buddy,” he said, “I’ve just been layin’ here thinkin’.”
“Hell of a time to be thinkin’,” said his pal. “What were you thinkin’ about?”
“I was thinkin’ how a fellow’s feelings get changed in this war.”
“What do you mean—get changed?”
“Why, once upon a time, back home, a fellow with a thirty-eight calibre pistol run me plum’ out of town.”
§ 164 In Accordance with the Ritual
Archie Gunn, the artist, is a Scot who was educated in England and who still has a great love for the national game of the British Isles, to wit: cricket. Will Kirk, the verse-writer, is a product of Wisconsin and until one day when his friend Gunn took him over on Staten Island had never seen a game of cricket.
Teams made up of English residents were playing. The spectators, almost exclusively, were their fellow-countrymen.