Sweeny, as you may infer from his name, is not a Frenchmen, even though he happens to be in the army service of France. I am also in the same service and my name is Casey. We are both Americans. Sweeny is a West Point graduate, and a native of Spokane, Wash. After his graduation from West Point he married a Belgian girl and settled down in Paris. His wife and two small children are living in that vicinity at the present time.
When the war broke out Sweeny enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He was promoted for gallantry in action; and last September, after leading us into the Boche lines during the Champagne offensive, he was decorated with the Legion of Honor. Lieut. Sweeny is the first American in fifty years who has held a commission in the French army.
But how Sweeny won his "hot dogs" is a different story.
One day when we were in the front trenches Sweeny handed me a cigarette. It looked like a Turkish cigarette and I duly remarked it.
"No," said he, and he indicated a large tin box filled with the same sort, which he had with him, "these are a present from our friends, the enemy. They were given to me by the Germans."
"Must have been sent over to you inside a 'Jack Johnson' shell," said I.
"I can see you don't believe me," Sweeny replied, "but it's a fact. They came in a hamper, together with two bottles of real Munich beer, an assortment of Westphalian ham, cheese, honey, sandwiches of roast veal and white bread, a few slabs of K bread, some pipe tobacco, and some—what do you think?—hot dogs! As sure as you're born, Casey, and if you'll believe me, I went for those frankfurters first! Oh, how many nights I have sat out here and thought how good one of those hot dogs, with a big gob of mustard on it, would be! But I never thought I'd ever taste any in the trenches. Yet only just now I have demolished four of them."
II—"LET SWEENY TELL IT"
Here was the way of it, as Sweeny told it to me: