“No, but all these girls don’t think o’ nothin’ but gettin’ there. From what I seen of it, I’d just as soon be in Akron.”
“Oh, I’d hardly say that!”
“Talk about spendin’ money! They was a poor fella here last week that got rid of a lot of it. He bought himself a bottle o’ champagne wine. I don’t think he’d tasted it before, but it’s cheap over here. So he got a hold o’ this bottle and poured it into him like it was excelsior water, and it acted on him like it was laughin’ gas. He went up alongside the officers’ billet and sang ’em a vocal solo. The captain heard him—you could of heard him in San Francisco—and the captain come out and invited him in. And when he got him in there he says: ‘So-and-So, how much did this little bun cost you?’ So the fella told him a buck and a half. So the captain says: ‘You’ve underestimated the amount by about seventy bucks. You’ll get your next pay the last day of October.’”
I asked my new friend how he liked his billet.
“Great!” he said. “I and a couple other fellas has a room next to a pig on one side and a flock o’ chickens on the other. We never get lonesome, and it makes it nice and handy when we want some ham and eggs. I know one fella that rooms next to a settlement o’ rats. Night times he sets his flashlight so’s it throws a narrow path o’ light acrost the floor, then he puts a little piece o’ meat in the path and stands over it with a bayonet. When Mr. Rat gets there the fella comes down whang with the bayonet and fastens him to the floor. It’s good target practise, and he’d ought to be sure fire by the time it’s Huns instead o’ rats.”
“Maybe,” said I, “the Huns would know better than to come out in the light.”
“They’d go anywheres for a piece o’ meat,” said the private.
He had to depart and report for muster. We took another road home, a road frequented by sheep and railroad crossings, both of which slow you up considerably.
In France the gates—strong iron ones—at grade crossings are kept closed except when some one wants to cross the tracks. The some one makes known his desire by tooting his horn or shouting, and the gatekeeper—usually an old lady with the pipe-smoking habit—comes out of her shack and opens the gates, expending anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour on the task. The salary attached to the position is the same as that of a French private: ten centimes a day, which is two cents in regular money. I presume the gatekeepers have a hot time in the old town on pay night.
As for the sheep, when you come up behind them you might as well resign yourself to staying behind them till they reach the village for which they are headed. They won’t get out of the way of their own accord, and neither the dog nor the aged shepherd will make any effort to sidetrack them.