What the Khaki Boys saw was a much perplexed company cook, a tall, lanky Western lad, trying to stand off the good-natured verbal attacks of a crowd of hungry doughboys who had just been relieved from a rather long tour in the front trenches.
"We want pie! We want pie!" they solemnly chanted, as though it were a dirge.
"An' by Gregory Josephus I tell you it's agin the regerlations!" declared Hiram Miller, the cook. "How'm I goin' to give you fellows pie, when I ain't got so much as a prune, now, to make it of? An' no flour—no nothin', in fact! You an' your pie! If you git canned Willie you ought to be thankful. Canned Willie an' beans is all the grub I've got."
At this mention of canned corned beef, generally dubbed "Willie," or "Bill," there was a groan from the lads who had just come off duty.
"Beans!" cried one. "I'm ashamed to look a bean in the eye."
"Beans don't have eyes—you're thinking of potatoes!" was a retort.
"Well, give us potatoes then, but not beans, O Cookie!"
"Make it a beef stew with plenty of gravy!" shouted a burly chap.
"Pie! Pie! We want pie!" came the grim chorus again.
"Say, you fellers'll drive me crazy!" stormed the cook, shaking his fists in the air. "There ain't no such animile as pie, gol ding it!"