When it came to provin' that it was us Yanks who really cleaned up the Huns and finished the war, Hartley was right there. That was his strong suit. He carried maps around, all marked up with the positions of our different divisions, and if he could get you to listen to him long enough he'd make you believe that after we got on the job the French and English merely hung around the back areas with their mouths open and watched us wind things up.
"You see," he'd explain, "it was our superior discipline and our wonderful morale that did it. Look at our marines. Just average material to start with. But what training! Same way with a lot of our infantry regiments. They'd been taught that orders were orders. It had been hammered into 'em. They knew that when they were told to do a thing it just had to be done, and that was all there was to it. We didn't wait until we got over there to win the war. We won it here, on our cantonment drill grounds. And I rather think, if you'll pardon my saying so, that I did my share."
"I'm glad you admit it, Hartley," says I. "I was afraid you wouldn't."
His latest bug though was this Veteran Reserve Army scheme of his. His idea was that instead of scrappin' this big army organization that it had cost so much to build up we ought to save it so it would be ready in case another country—Japan maybe—started anything. He thought every man should keep his uniform and equipment and be put on call. They ought to keep up their training, too. Might need some revisin' of regiments and so on, but by having the privates report, say once a week, at the nearest place where officers could meet them, it could be done. Course, some of the officers might be too busy to bother with it. Well, they could resign. That would give a chance for promotions. And the gaps in the enlisted ranks could be kept filled from the new classes which universal service would account for.
See Hartley's little plan? He could go on wearin' his shoulder straps and shiny leggins and maybe in time he'd have a gold or silver poison ivy leaf instead of the bar.
It was the details of this scheme that he'd been tryin' to work off on me for weeks, but I'd kept duckin', until finally I'd agreed to let him spill it across the luncheon table.
"It's got to be a swell feed, though, Hartley," I insists as I joins him out at the express elevator.
"Will the Café l'Europe do?" he asks.
"Gee!" says I. "So that's why you 're dolled up in the Sunday uniform, eh? Got the belt on too. All right. But I mean to wade right through from hors-d'œuvres to parfait. Hope you've cashed in your delayed pay vouchers."
I notice, too, that Hartley don't hunt out any secluded nook down in the grill, but leads the way to a table right in the middle of the big room on the main floor, where most of the ladies are. And believe me, paradin' through a mob like that is something he don't shrink from at all. Did I mention that Hartley used to be kind of meek actin'? Well, that was before I heard him talk severe to a Greek waiter.