Waddy sighs deep. "I didn't know until then how dreadful war could be," says he. "I promised to come back to her just as soon as the awful mess was over. She declared that she would come to America if I didn't. She gave me one of her rings. 'It shall be as a token,' she told me, 'that I am yours.'"
"Sort of a trunk check, eh?" says I.
"Ah, that ring!" says Waddy. "You see, it was too large for my little finger too small for any of the others. And I was afraid of losing it if I kept it in my pocket. I was always losing things—shaving mirrors, socks, wrist watch. Going about like that one does. At least, I did. All over France I scattered my belongings. That's what you get by having had a valet for so long.
"So I called up Joe Bruzinski, my top sergeant. Best top in the army, Joe; systematic, methodical. I depended upon him for nearly everything; couldn't have gotten along without him, in fact. Not an educated fellow, you know. Rather crude. An Americanized Pole, I believe. But efficient, careful about little things. I gave him the ring to keep for me. Less than a week after that I was laid up with a beastly siege of influenza which came near finishing me. I was shipped back to a base hospital and it was more than a month before I was on my feet again. Meanwhile I'd gotten out of touch with my division, applied for a transfer to another branch, got stuck with an S. O. S. job, and landed home at the tail-end of everything after all the shouting was over."
"I see," says I. "Bruzinski lost in the shuffle."
"Precisely," says Waddy. "Mustered out months before I was. When I did get loose they wouldn't let me go back to Belgium. And then——"
"I remember," says I. "You side-tracked the lovely Marcelle for that little blonde from. Richmond, didn't you?"
"A mere passing fancy," says Waddy, flushin' up. "Nothing serious. She was really engaged all the time to Bent Hawley. They're to be married next month, I hear. But Marcelle! She has come. Just think, she has been in this country for weeks, came over with the King and Queen of Belgium and stayed on. Looking for me. I suppose. And I knew nothing at all about it until yesterday. She's in Washington. Jimmy Carson saw her driving down Pennsylvania avenue. He was captain of my company, you know. Rattle-brained chap, Jimmy. Hadn't kept track of Bruzinski at all. Knew he came back, but no more. So you see? In order to get that ring I must find Joe."
"I don't quite get you," says I. "Why not find the lovely Marcelle first and explain about the ring afterwards?"
Waddy shakes his head. "I was in uniform when she knew me," says he. "I—I looked rather well in it, I'm told. Anyway, different. But in civies, even a frock coat, I've an idea she wouldn't recognize me as a noble hero. Eh?"