"Oh, I say, Torchy!" he protests. "No chaffing, now. I'm in dead earnest, you know. Of course, being all shot to pieces physically, I can't go to the front, where I'd give my neck to be. Why, with this leaky heart valve of mine I couldn't even——"
"Yes, yes," I broke in. "We've been over all that. Not that I'd mind hearing it again, but just now I'm more or less busy."
"Are you, though?" says Barry. "Isn't that perfectly ripping! Something important, I suppose?"
"Might be if I could pull it off," says I, "but as it stands——"
"That's it!" says Barry. "I was hoping I'd find you starting something new. That's why I came."
"Eh?" says I.
"I'm volunteering—under you," says he. "I'll be anything you say; top sergeant, corporal, or just plain private. Anything so I can help. See! I am yours to command, Lieutenant Torchy," and he does a Boy Scout salute.
"Sorry," says I, "but I don't see how I could use you just now. The fact is, I can't even say what I'm working on."
"Oh, perfectly bully!" says Barry. "You needn't tell me a word, or drop a hint. Just give me my orders, lieutenant, and let me carry on."
Well, instead of shooin' him off I'd only got him stickin' tighter'n a wad of gum to a typewriter's wrist watch, and after trying to do some more heavy thinkin' with him watchin' admirin' from where I'd planted him in a corner, I gives it up.