A slow grin overspread the Pole’s stolid face. “I take the chance,” he declared, thereby proving that he was not so stupid as he seemed.
“You’re a real sport, Iggy.” His seatmate playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “I guess if you can stand us we can stand you.”
“You are no ver’ strong.” Ignace was evidently more impressed by the lack of force that had attended the light blow than by the compliment. “My father ver’ strong man,” he added with a reminiscent frown.
“Well, I hadn’t expected to knock your head off,” conceded the other satirically. “That was only a friendly tap.” Struck by a sudden thought he asked curiously, “How’d you happen to enlist, Iggy? Are you twenty-one?”
“Y-e-a. Twenty-one an’ two weeks. So”—the china-blue eyes took on a defiant glint—“run ’way. My father, he no like this war. He say I no go ’cause no American. I say, ‘go anyhow.’ Better I think be solder an’ get kill once than my father most kill when he hit me much. I work by one mill, but he get all moneys I make. This is no right, I say many time, and always get the black eye or the bloody nose. So go quiet by place an’ say to man there, ‘I can be the solder? I like fight for this country.’ Then I don’t go home more. Stay by a frien’ an’ my father don’t know nothin’ till too late.”
Once started on a recital of his own troubles, Ignace had hardly stopped for breath. There were no smiles on the faces of his listeners when he had finished. The lack of excitement in his voice as he droned forth the story of his own patriotic awakening and his final revolt, brought a sympathetic gleam into three pairs of eyes.
“I guess it’s time to shake with you, Iggy.” Jimmy suited the action to the word by grabbing the Polish boy’s rough hand.
“Here, too,” called out the reporter. “Let’s all shake and tell our right names. Mine’s Robert Dalton. Either Bob or Dal’ll do.”
“Mine’s Jimmy Blazes, James Blaise when we have company. This old sobersides is Roger Barlow. He’s got to have a shorter name than that, though.”
“Call him Ruddy and let it go at that,” suggested Dalton. “I used to know a fellow named Roger. We called him Ruddy or Rodge.”