This morning he appeared at reveille, waking me up with his frantic efforts to dig himself to light again and kissing me good-morning, by way of showing his appreciation. He was just a plain yellow dog, with a lop ear and a habit of wagging all over when he could not get enough expression in his stump of a tail. Attached to a strap that he wore in place of a collar was a tag on which was scrawled: “Presented to Local Board No. 163—Hold the fort for we are coming.” I concluded that if they held onto the fort, when they arrived, as well as they held onto their dog it wasn’t worth while having them come at all.
“Local Board No. 163” stood guard on the foot of my bed, or rather, sat guard, until I got dressed, and although he created no end of interest among the rest of the fellows in the room, who whistled and called to him, he refused to leave his new-found “bunkie.” He just sat tight. He even stayed when I got up to go, but he looked at me with a most reproachful air, as if to say, “I think a lot of you even though you do want to leave me.”
He remained after every one had left the room and when I returned an hour later to get my mess kit for breakfast, he was still there.
But the rattle of mess tins must have suggested something to him for when I got up to go this time he was right beside me, and he even braved the crush at the mess-hall door to stick near me.
That dog never had so much to eat in all his young life as he got for breakfast that morning. First he visited our Japanese cook, who liked him and proved it by giving him a piece of meat. Then he visited the kitchen police, who found something for him, after which he made the rounds of the mess tables, coming back to me actually bloated with food. He looked up at me and I’ll swear he grinned and tried to say: “This is the life—eh, Ol’ Top?”
“Local Board No. 163” has already become a favourite, but with all his petting from his many well-wishers, he seems to want to call me Boss. He’s on the cot beside me now as I write, snoring with disgusting impoliteness, but I guess, being just a plain yellow dog, he don’t know any better.
This has been a day of visitors, and little work. Early this morning they began to arrive. I never saw so many motor cars anywhere, except at football games, or the races. And girls; thousands of them, and pretty, too. But shucks, I’m outclassed. In fact I began to feel like my dog to-day. I’ll admit it was pretty soft for the fellows who had uniforms, but for the poor tramps like myself, who still wear their civilian clothes (or what is left of them, which isn’t very much all told) it was sort of a lonesome day.
Pretty soft for the fellows who had uniforms