party at the Chicago Auditorium in 1912--beautiful gestures
and impressive. The maid became interested. Then he took the
recalcitrant trousers, placed them gently but firmly against his
friend's heart--or such a matter, showing how far from the ideal
they came. Then he laid on the bed a brown woollen shirt, and in
the tail of it marked out dramatically a "V" slice about the shape
of an old-fashioned slice of pumpkin pie--a segment ten or a dozen
inches wide that would require two hands in feeding. Then he pointed
from the shirt to the trousers and then to the ample bosom of his
friend, indicating with emotion that the huge pie-slice was to
go into the rear corsage of the breeches. It was wonderful to see
intelligence dawn in the face of that chambermaid. The gestures of
that Bull Moose speech had touched her heart. Suddenly she knew the
truth, and it made her free, so she cried, "Wee wee!" And oratory
had again risen to its proper place in our midst! At two o'clock
she returned with the pumpkin pie slice from the tail of the brown
shirt, neatly, but hardly gaudily inserted into the rear waist line
of the riding trousers, and we lay down to pleasant dreams; for we
found that by standing stiffly erect, by keeping one's tunic pulled
down, and by carefully avoiding a stooping posture, it was possible
to conceal the facts of one's double life. So we went forth with
Major Murphy the next morning as care-free as "Eden's garden birds."
We looked like birds, too--scarecrows!

[Illustration: Eight inches short in one waistband is a catastrophe]

Our business took us to the American Ambulance men who were with the
French army. Generally when they were at work they were quartered
near a big base hospital; and their work took them from the large
hospital to the first aid stations near the front line trenches.