“I can’t eat the dog.”
“Go on out,” said the cook. “This ain’t the Waldorf-Astoria. Nor Childs’ neither.”
“Some day, on the field of honor,” said Sergeant Gray, “you will lie wounded, Watt. You will beg for a cup of water, and I shall refuse it, saying——”
“Give him something to get rid of him,” the cook instructed his helper.
And Sergeant Gray was fed. As he drank his coffee he reflected as to his wager of the night before. It appealed to his sporting instinct but not to his reason. He had exactly as much chance to eat a bran muffin with the general as he had to sign peace terms with the Kaiser.
He drank his tepid coffee and surveyed his finger nails disconsolately. The faces had only partially disappeared during his morning’s ablution.
“This is the life, Watt!” he said to the cook. “Wine, women and song, eh?”
But the cook was cutting his finger nails, preparatory to morning inspection.
Now the ink pictures on Sergeant Gray’s finger nails had a certain significance. They bore, to be exact, a certain faint resemblance to a young lady whose photograph was now concealed against inspection in the sergeant’s condiment can. The young lady in question had three days before wired the sergeant to this effect:
“Married Bud Palmer yesterday. Please wish me happiness.”