for him. A desperate man at least commands respect, whatever his
delusion may be.

And that night we left the French front, and nosed our car toward
Paris.

There we made preparations to go to the headquarters of the
American Army. In Paris also we got into our new regulation Red
Cross uniforms. Ever since man first pinned a buffalo tail to the
back of his belt, and stuck a rooster feather in his matted hair,
he has been proud of his uniform. Sex vanity expresses itself
most gorgeously in a uniform, and when they put Henry and me into
uniforms, even carefully repressed Red Cross uniforms, open at the
neck and with blue dabs on our coat lapels to distinguish us from
the "first class fighting man," we were so proud that often five
or six consecutive minutes passed when we weren't afraid of what
our wives would say about the $124 each had spent for the togs. At
times our attitude toward our wives was not unlike that of drunken
rabbits hunting brazenly for the dogs! But when we slipped into
citizen clothes, sobriety and remorse covered us, and we shook sad
heads. We wore the uniforms little about Paris; for our Sam Browne
belts kept us returning salutes until our arms hurt. They couldn't
break me of the habit of saluting with a newspaper or a package or
a pencil in my hand. And my return of the interminable round of
salutes from French, British, and Italian soldiers who throng Paris,
probably insulted--all unbeknownst to me--hundreds of our allies,
and made them sneer at our flag. So it seemed best for us to wear
these uniforms only where soldiers congregated who would know us
for the gawks that we were and forgive us our military trespasses.
Then a real day came when our Red Cross duties took us to General