Betty. "We have been too much occupied right along in being sorry for the
poor old professor."

"Well, if you had known the boys, you would have thought of their side of
it all right," said Frank seriously. "They are mighty good scouts, both of
them, and they think a lot of their old dad, too, I can tell you. Why,
many a night"--his voice took on a reminiscent note and the girls felt
once again that they were privileged in having a brief glimpse of the life
"over there"--"when a surprise attack was scheduled for the next morning
or we were waiting for some such manoeuvre from the enemy, Arnold would
talk to me about his dad--that was the time when fellows got chummy, you
know, and got to know each other's souls--and once he gave me a note for
the old chap and asked me to deliver it if I came through and he didn't. I
think I have it about me somewhere." He fumbled about in his pockets while
the girls waited silently.

Presently he drew forth a little slip of paper, muddy and worn and
dust-stained from being carried about for a long, long time in a khaki
pocket.

"He told me," Frank went on, still holding the slip of paper in his hand
but making no attempt to open it, "that his mother had died when he and
Jimmy were young and that since then his dad had been father and mother
both to them and that he had worked himself nearly to death to give them a
chance for the college education that he had had. He said that the one
thing that had always threatened to floor the old boy was when either he
or Jim got mad and threatened to give up school and go to work so as to
take some of the load from the old pater's shoulders. So they were glad,
actually glad, when the war came along and gave them a chance not only to
serve their country and earn some money--even if it was only a miserable