The young fellow was of about Tom's own age, and the most conspicuous thing about him, aside from has smile and his freckles, was the collection of badge-buttons which decorated the lapels of his coat and the front of his hat. They almost rivalled his freckles in number. Some of them were familiar enough to Tom, showing flags and patriotic phrases, but others puzzled him, one or two bearing words which were evidently French. There was an English Win the War Loan button, and a Red Cross button which read I have given two shillings.
"Here, I'll show you something else," said the stranger, noticing Tom's interest in the buttons. He opened his bag and took out a couple of apples, giving one to Tom. "You see that," he observed, holding up a small crumpled piece of brass. "Know where I got that?" He rolled his R's very noticeably in the manner peculiar to the country people of New York State.
"What is it?" Tom asked.
"It's the cover of an ink-stand. You know what made it like that? A Zeppelin! That was in a raid, that was. It came flying plunk out through the front window—and it stuck right into a tree like a dagger. It might have stuck in my head, only it didn't. I'm lucky—that's what our gun crew says." He breathed on the crumpled souvenir and rubbed it on his trousers to polish it. "See, it's got a kind of—initials, like—on it! Everybody has their initials on things in England."
Tom took the little twisted ornamental cover in his hand and gazed at it, fascinated.
"See? M. E. M.," continued the stranger. "That was near Whitehall, it was; a little girl was sitting at a table writing her lessons; she was just in the middle of a word—that's what I heard people in the crowd say—when, kerflunk! down comes, the bomb through the roof and goes right through the floor of the top room and hits right on the table! Go-o-d-night for that little girl!"
"Kill her?" Tom asked.
"Blew her all to pieces," said his companion, as he took the poor little trinket and continued to polish it on his knee.
Of all that Tom Slade had read about the war, its grim cruelties, its thousands slain and maimed, its victims struggling frantically in the rough ocean, the poor starving wretches in Belgium, nothing had impressed him so deeply nor seemed to bring the war so close to him as this little crumpled piece of brass—the sad memorial of a little girl who had been blown into eternity while she was studying her lessons. A lump came up in his throat, and he stood watching his companion, and saying nothing.
"That was the blond beast, that was," said the stranger. "I saw him stickin' his old head out of the ocean, too, and we got a pop at him last trip. Here, I'll show you something else."