friend's unmerited praise.

"Thanks, Jim. I need a compliment like the devil."

"Where've you been since you got back?"

"Up in the camp, trying to get a little rest and exercise. But it's
too lonesome nights. I rest better when I keep on the jump."

"You're in black; that doesn't mean--?"

She shook her head. A light of eagerness in his eyes was quenched,
and he growled:

"Too bad!" He could afford to say it, since the object of his obloquy
was alive. If the person mentioned had not been alive, the phrase
he used would have been the same more gently intoned.

Charity protested: "Shame on you! I know you mean it for flattery,
but you mustn't, you really mustn't. I'm in black for--for Europe."
She laughed pitifully at the conceit.

He answered, with admiring awe: "I've heard about you. You're a
wonder; that's what you are, Charity Coe, a wonder. Here's a big
hulk like me loafing around trying to kill time, and a little tike
like you over there in France spending a fortune of money and more
strength than even you've got in a slaughter-house of a war hospital.
How did you stand it?"

"It wasn't much fun," she sighed, "but the nurses can't feel sorry