"Yes," he announced, "they are every one authorized by the War Department. These three octangular triangles of orange mean my third cousin did a good deal of war work. These ten vertical mauve stripes are ten embarkations; the ten horizontal stripes denote ten times sea-sick."
"Then you never reached France," I sympathized.
"No, but this gray dot indicates extreme disappointment. Now these pink crosses—"
But I hurried off, and almost ran into a limping soldier with only a small gold chevron on each arm. My curiosity again overcame me. "My boy, how came you by those?" I asked, feeling assured he could not say much about only two chevrons. He did not.
"Well," he answered as he passed, "I was abroad for a while, and I happened to kind of go a little lame."
Upon a wharf where the Yanks were disembarking a reporter buttonholed a rosy-cheeked private.
"Are you one of the heroes?" the newspaper man asked, with notebook ready to record a stirring tale of heroism.
"Naw," was the blushing reply. "I'm only a common doughboy. But the lieutenant, over there, is one."
To the officer indicated went the reporter.