“Amazing!” commented Mr. Booth unctuously. “We hear of so much money being spent, and yet nothing to show for it.”
“Graft!” explained the sergeant in a very deep bass. “Graft, that’s what it is!”
Mr. Booth seemed temporarily to forget that he was there to take a picture.
“But you—we will come out all right,” he observed, watching the sergeant closely. “We have so much. The Browning gun, now—do you know about that? It is wonderful, not so?”
“Wonderful?” queried the sergeant, feeling happier than he had for some time. “Well, I’m a machine gunner; and if we’re to get anywhere we’ve got to do better than the Browning.” He had a second’s uneasiness then, until he remembered that he wore no insignia. “It heats. It jams. It——” Here ended his knowledge of machine guns. “It’s rotten, that’s all.”
Mr. Booth was moistening his lips.
“It’s sad news,” he observed. “I—but this Liberty motor—I understand it’s a success.”
“You’d better not ask me about that,” said the sergeant gravely. “Ever since my brother went down——”
“Went down? Fell?”
“Aviation. Engine too heavy for the wings. Got up a hundred feet—first plane, you know, testing it out. And——”