"You always will be a child," Dave observed dryly. "Birthdays
won't make any great difference in your real age, Danny boy."

"After that kind of a roast," grinned Reade, "I believe I'll take
a reef in a few of the bitter things I was about to say."

Dick laughed pleasantly. Somehow, with the walk, all soon began
to feel better. That first fainting, yearning desire for food
was beginning to pass.

"Do you know what the greatest trouble is with the American people?"
asked Dick, after they had covered a mile.

"I don't," Tom admitted. "Do you, Dick?"

"I've been forming an idea," Prescott went on. "Our fault, if
I can gather it rightly from what I've been reading, is that we
Americans are inclined to be too babyish."

"Tell that to the countries we've been at war with in the past,"
jeered Tom Reade.

"Oh, I guess it's a different breed of Americans that we send
to the front in war time," Prescott continued. "But, take you
fellows; some of you have been almost kicking because breakfast
is put off a bit. Most Americans are like that. Yet, it isn't
because we have such healthy stomachs, either, for foreigners
know us as a race of dyspeptics. Take a bit of cold weather in
winter---really cold, biting weather and just notice how Americans