"Did--er, Bessie ask you to look me up?" asked Jack confusedly.

"To be sure! Twice at least. And I had to promise solemnly I'd do it even
if I had to take you by the collar and hustle you there. But our time is
limited, and we'd better be on our way, Jack."

The other showed an astonishing return to his old form. Apparently the
mere fact that he was about to see the Gleasons again caused him to
forget, temporarily at least, all about his fresh troubles. They were
soon hurrying along, now and then dropping flat as some shell shrieked
overhead or burst with a crash not far away.

Their relations with Mrs. Gleason and Bessie were very remarkable, and of
a character to bind them close together in friendship. In fact, as has
been described at length in one of the earlier books of this series, Tom
and Jack had been mainly instrumental in releasing the mother and young
daughter from a chateau where they were being held prisoner by an
unscrupulous and plotting relative, with designs on their fortune.

The so-called "hut" of the Y.M.C.A. workers was really only another
dilapidated and abandoned German dugout, which had been hurriedly
arranged as a sort of makeshift headquarters, where the doughboys who
could get leave might gather and find such amusement as the
conditions afforded.

There were Salvation Army lassies present too, with their pies and
doughnuts that made the boys feel closer to home than almost anything
else, and even a sprinkling of Red Cross nurses from the field hospital
who had been given a brief leave for recuperation.