"Oh, joy!" Roy commented.
"I'm glad to see you bucking up," said the scoutmaster. "I want you to tell the boys," he went on to Roscoe, "a little about life down in Camp Dix. Tell them how you enlisted."
"I didn't enlist—I was drafted."
"Well, it's much the same—you were glad to be drafted. There were a whole lot of you fellows who didn't get around to enlisting who were glad enough when the call came. You didn't need any urging, I'll bet."
"N-no," said Roscoe.
"And so I want you to tell these scouts, just in your own way, what it means to be a soldier. Dwell on the sense of honor which this fine military discipline gives. Tell them what is meant by a parole, and what it means to break a parole—which is just breaking your promise. I don't care so much about the guns and swords just now—I mean as far as to-morrow night is concerned. But I'd like these scouts to know that there's something besides fighting to being a soldier—a real one. I'd like them to know that a soldier's word can be trusted, his promise depended on. If anything that has happened in my troop," he added significantly, "has given them a wrong impression—you correct that impression. See?"
"I'll try to."
"That's it. You know, Roscoe, most boys, and some scouts even, think that a soldier is just a fellow who shoots and makes raids and storms fortifications and all that. There's many a boy thinks he can be a soldier by just running off to the war. But that's where he's got a couple of more thinks coming, as Roy here would say. Uncle Sam wants soldiers, but he doesn't want to be lied to and cheated——"
Roy winced.
"I want you to give them just a little off-hand, heart-to-heart talk about the other end of it—how a 'soldier's wealth is honor,' as old What's-his-name, the poet, says."