ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece

And at that it seems a lot of money to pay for a rig which can be worn at most only two months

“You’ll have to put out that cigar, sir”

She often paced the rounds of the deck between us

“Col-o-nel, will you please carry my books?”

So we waved back at them so long as they were in sight

“Donnez moi some soap here and be mighty blame toot sweet about it!”

Eight inches short in one waistband is a catastrophe

One of our party climbed to the roof of the dugout

“Come on!  Let’s go to the abri!”

So we went back—­me holding those khaki trousers up by sheer force of will and both hands!

He had some trouble lighting his cigarette and was irritated for a second at his inconvenience

“Oh, yes,” answered the Eager Soul to our enquiring eyes.  “Mrs. Chessman—­this is practically her hospital”

He was a rare bird; this American going on a big drunk on water

Henry puffed on his dreadnaught pipe and left the lady from Oklahoma City to me

And he sat cross-legged

As we sat in the car he came down the street beating a snare drum

They were standing on the running board all this time with the train going forty miles an hour

“What part of the States do you Canadians come from?”

He told us what happened impersonally as one who is listening to another man’s story in his own mouth

A fat man can’t wear the modern American army uniform without looking like a sack of meal

He wore a scarlet coat of unimaginable vividness, a cutaway coat of glaring scarlet broadcloth

We thought he might be testing us out as potential spies

And we felt like prize boobs suddenly kidnapped from a tacky party and dropped into a grand ball

“Well now, sir, you wouldn’t be wearing those brown shoes to Lord Bryce’s tea, would you, Mr. White?”

THE MARTIAL ADVENTURES OF HENRY AND ME

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH WE BEGIN OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

By rights Henry, being the hero of this story, should be introduced in the first line.  But really there isn’t so much to say about Henry—­Henry J. Allen for short, as we say in Kansas—­Henry J. Allen, editor and owner of the Wichita Beacon.  And to make the dramatis personae complete, we may consider me as the editor of the Emporia Gazette, and the two of us as short, fat, bald, middle-aged, inland Americans, from fresh water colleges in our youth and arrived at New York by way of an often devious, yet altogether happy route, leading through politics where it was rough going and unprofitable for years; through business where we still find it easy to sign, possible to float and hard to pay a ninety-day note, and through two country towns; one somewhat less than one hundred thousand population, and Emporia slightly above ten thousand.