stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein' a private is no
pink-silk picnic."

"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs.
Berthelin.

The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she
said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to
betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities."

Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and
aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good. I'll show you, Mayme. Wait till I
come back--if I ever do come back--and you'll be sorry."

"Hero stuff," commented the Little Red Doctor. "It'll all have oozed out
of his fingertips this time to-morrow."

"Will you show me a place to enlist?" challenged the boy. "And," he
added with a malicious grin, "will you enlist with me?"

"Sure!" said the Little Red Doctor. "I'll show you. But they won't take
me." He bestowed a bitter glance on his twisted foot. "Come along."

They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by
an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with
the rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine.

We waited at the Bonnie Lassie's for the Little Red Doctor's return. He
came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little gleam of
disappointment in Mayme's deep eyes.