“Why, what’s the matter?”
Then the whole pitiful tale was unfolded. Neddy hadn’t any money, not a clacker, and being too shy to ask for a loan, he had gone on the trip with empty pockets. He hadn’t been able to buy himself a bite of dinner. But that wasn’t what hurt. What hurt was that he couldn’t purchase any souvenirs for his girl, and there had been so many enticing ones!
“Gee,” he moaned, “but that’s an awful place for a feller to go who hasn’t any money.”
Then, just as the last straw of misery, his horse had been taken sick on the way home!
We are going through one of those painful periods of pecuniary depletion which are periodic in the army, the inevitable prelude to payday. In Battery A there are two lads whom I have privately dubbed Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They are both short, roly-poly and always smiling and they are absolutely inseparable. When either of them buys anything at the canteen he always buys double; two packets of cigarettes, two “bunches” of gum, two cups of hot chocolate “one for me and one for my friend” as the stock phrase goes. This morning I received a shock. Tweedledum asked for one bar of chocolate and one package of cigarettes.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, thinking alarmedly of how in the immortal poem “Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle,”—“You and your buddy haven’t quarrelled, have you?”
“No ma’am, oh no indeed ma’am! It’s just that it’s an awful long ways from payday!”
Later I saw them carefully dividing the purchases between them. I leaned over the counter, beckoned to Tweedledee.
“You boys go around to the back door, but don’t let anybody see you!”
At the back door I gave them each a slice of Snow’s latest lemon pie.