“I have no the monies. A little, yes, but no much. So stay I here. Anyhow, you go. I very glad for you have the fon. While you way think I to you,” Ignace added with a sigh.
“No money! For goodness’ sake, where is it? You just drew—— I beg your pardon, Iggy.” Jimmy colored hotly. “I shouldn’t have asked such a nosey question. Forget it.”
“Ask all thing you want ask all time.” Ignace accompanied this gracious permission with a sweeping flourish of his hand. “You are the Brother. So have you the good right. Firs’ think I no say nothin’. Anyhow, now I tell. I am to poor my mother the bad son for that I run way. When I home give her all monies no my father take. Now I here she have the nothin’ for long time. He my father give only for the rent an’ the eat. No much the eat. In my house are the three littles, two sister an’ one brother. So have I nother brother. He have sixteen year. Work hard but every week get only the five dollar, an’ my father take mos’. Now have I the pay sen’ all my mother. Only I keep two dollar. It is enough here, but no for have the eat, the show, the good time Bob say. Som’ day go along Tremont. No now. I am the broke.” Ignace looked mildly triumphant at having been able to express himself in slangy Bob’s vernacular.
“You may be ‘the broke,’ Iggy, but you’ve got a solid gold heart!” exclaimed Bob, his shrewd black eyes growing soft. “I call that mighty white in you. Never you mind, if we can get the passes you come along with us just the same. I’ll do the treating and glad to at that.”
“Count me in on that,” emphasized Jimmy. “My dough is yours, Iggy. You can draw on it till it gives out.”
“Same here,” smiled Roger, who had been signally touched by the broken little tale of sacrifice.
“No, no!” The Pole’s tones indicated stubborn finality. “I can no do. Thank. You are the too good all. I know; un’erstan’. I have for me what you call it, the respet. So mus’ I the no say an’ stay by the camp. You ask me more, I no like; feel fonny mad!”
Ignace’s characterization of hurt self-respect as “fonny mad” raised a laugh. That, at least, did not disturb him. He merely grinned and remarked tranquilly: “You make the fon one poor Poley.”
The plan for a journey into Tremont, having been duly discussed, it but remained to the three young men to obtain the desired passes for Saturday afternoon. Tremont was the only city of importance within a radius of seventy-five miles. It lay about twenty miles east of the camp. Soon after the making of Camp Sterling a line of automobile busses had sprung up to do a thriving business between there and Tremont. There were also many regularly licensed jitney automobiles that went to and fro for the accommodation of both soldiers and visitors, not to mention their own individual profit.
“We can go to Tremont in one of those Cinderella pumpkins for seventy-five cents, or we can give up a plunk apiece and ride in style in a jit. You pays your money and you takes your choice,” declared Bob. At first sight he had attached the appellation of Cinderella pumpkins to the big yellow uncomfortable busses operated by a business concern in Tremont.