now. Two hundred delivery within month.' Then I began to sit up an'
take notice. Y' see, I'm in with a big firm of auto builders--mebbe you
know 'em--Rawbon an' Spedding, the Rawbon bein' my dad? No? Well,
anyhow, I got the contract, got it so quick it made my head swim. Gee,
that fellow in the War Office was buyin' up autos like I'd buy
pipe-lights. The hundred lorries was shipped over, an' I saw 'em safe
through the specified tests an' handed 'em over. Same with the next two
hundred, an' this"--tapping his toe on the floor--"is one of 'em right
here."

"I see how the lorry got here," said Courtenay, hugely interested, "but
I don't see how you've managed to be aboard. You and a suit of khaki
and a sergeant's stripes weren't all in the contract, I suppose?"

"Nope," said the sergeant, "not in the written one, mebbe. But I took a
fancy to seein' how the engines made out under war conditions, an'
figured I might get some useful notes on it for the firm, so I fixed it
to come right along."

"But how?" asked Courtenay--"if that's not a secret."

"Why, that guy in the testin' sheds was plump tickled when I told him
my notion. He fixed it all, and me suddenly discoverin' I was mistook
for a Canadian I just said 'M-m-m' when anybody asked me. I had to
enlist though, to put the deal through, an' after that there wasn't
trouble enough to clog the works of a lady's watch. But there was
trouble enough at the other end. My dad fair riz up an' screeched
cablegrams at me when I hinted at goin' to the Front. He made out it
was on the business side he was kickin', with the attitude of the
U-nited States toward the squabble thrown in as extra. Neutrals, he