"Oh, I say, though!" protests Piddie. "Why, everyone knows that you——"
"That's where you're dead wrong, Piddie," I breaks in. "What everybody really knows is that while most of the young hicks who've been Plattsburged into uniforms are already across Periscope Pond helpin' swat the Hun, I'm still floatin' around here with nothing worse than car dust on my tailor-built khaki. Why, even them bold Liberty bond patriots who commute on the 8:03 are tired of asking me when I'm going to be sent over to tell Pershing how it ought to be done. But when it comes to an old crab of a swivel chair major chuckin' 'bomb-proofer' in my teeth—well, I guess that'll be about all. Here's where I get a revise or quit. Right here."
And it was sentiments like that, only maybe worded not quite so brash, that I passed out to Old Hickory a little later on. He listens about as sympathetic as a traffic cop hearin' why you tried to rush the stop signal.
"I think we have discussed all that before, young man," says he. "The War Department has recognized that, as the head of an essential industry, I am entitled to a private secretary; also that you might prove more useful with a commission than without one. And I rather think you have. So there you are."
"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," says I, "but I can't see it that way. I don't know whether I'm private seccing or getting ready for a masquerade ball. Any one-legged man could do what I'm doing. I'm ready to chuck the commission and enlist."
"Really!" says he. "Well, in the first place, my son, a war-time commission is something one doesn't chuck back at the United States government because of any personal whim. It isn't being done. And then again, you tried enlisting once, didn't you, and were turned down?"
"But that was early in the game," says I, "when the recruiting officers weren't passing any but young Sandows. I could get by now. Have a heart, Mr. Ellins. Lemme make a try."
He chews his cigar a minute, drums thoughtful on the mahogany desk, and then seems to have a bright little idea.
"Very well, Torchy," says he, "we'll see what my friend, Major Wellby, can do for you when he comes in."
"Him!" says I. "Why, he'd do anything for me that the law didn't stop him from."