"Ah!" says he, rubbin' his hands enthusiastic. "The signor with the yellow gloves? In the tent there you will find heem."

So I steps over to the door of a sort of canvas annex and peers in. And say, it was a rude shock. Forsythe is there, all right. He's snuggled up cozy next to an oil heater, holdin' a watch in one hand and a cigarette in the other, while around him is grouped his faithful fluff body-guard, each with a pan in her lap and the potato-peelin's comin'

off rapid. Forsythe? Oh, he seems to be speedin' 'em up and keepin'

tally.

I'd just let out my second gasp when I feels somebody at my elbow, and glances round to find it's Miss Jane.

"Look!" says I, indicatin' Forsythe and his busy bees.

"What a picture!" says Miss Jane.

"Yes," says I, "ill.u.s.tratin' the manly art of lettin' the women do it."

Miss Jane laughs easy.

"It has been that way for ages," says she. "Mr. Hurd is only running true to type. But see! The potatoes are nearly all peeled and our dinner is going to be served on time. What splendid a.s.sistants you've both been!"

At that, though, if there'd been a medal to be pa.s.sed out, I guess it would have been pinned on Forsythe.

CHAPTER XV

THE HOUSE OF TORCHY

This trip it was a matter of tanks. No, not the ice-water variety, or the kind that absorbs high-b.a.l.l.s. Army tanks--the sort that wallows out at daybreak and gives the Hun that chilly feelin' down his spine.

Accordin' to my credentials, I was supposed to be inspectin' 'em for weak spots in the armor or punk work on the gears. And I can tell you now, on the side, that it was 90 per cent. bluff. What the Ordnance Department really wanted to know was whether the work was bein' speeded up proper, how many men on the shifts, and was the steel comin' through from the rollin' mills all right. Get me? Sleuth stuff.

I'd been knockin' around there for four days, bein' towed about by the reserve major, who had a face on him like a stuffed owl, a nut full of decimal fractions, and a rubber-stamp mind. Oh, he was on the job, all right. So was everybody else in sight. I could see that after the first day. In fact, I coded in my O. K. the second noon and was plannin' to slip back home.

But when I hinted as much to the Major he nearly threw a cat-fit. Why, he'd arranged a demonstration at 10 A.M. Thursday, for my special benefit. And there were the tests--horse-power, gun-ranges, resistance, and I don't know what all; technical junk that I savvied about as much as if he'd been tryin' to show me how to play the Chinese alphabet on a piccolo.

Course, I couldn't tell him that, nor I didn't want to break his heart by refusin'. So I agrees to stick around a while longer. But say, I never enjoyed such a poor time doin' it. For there was just one spot on the map where I was anxious to be for the next few days. That was at home. It was one of the times when I ought to be there too, for---- Well, I'll get to that later.

Besides, this fact'ry joint where they were buildin' the tanks wasn't any allurin' spot. I can't advertise just where it was, either; the government wouldn't like it. But if there's any part of Connecticut that's less interestin' to loaf around in, I never got stranded there.

You run a spur track out into the bare hills for fifteen miles from nowhere, slap up a row of cement barracks, and a few acres of machine shops, string a ten-foot barbed-wire fence around the plant, drape the whole outfit in soft-coal smoke, and you ain't got any Garden of Eden winter resort. Specially when it's full of low-brow mechanics who speak in seven different lingos and subsist mainly on cut plug and garlic.

After I'd checked up all the dope I'd come for, and durin' the times when the Major was out plannin' more inspection stunts for me, I was left to drill around by myself. Hours and hours. And all there was to read in the Major's office was engineerin' magazines and the hist'ry of Ess.e.x County, Ma.s.s. Havin' been fed up on mechanics, I tackled the hist'ry. One chapter had a corkin' good Indian scalpin' story in it, about a Mrs. Hannah Dustin; and say, as a short-order hair remover she was a lady champ, all right. But the rest of the book wasn't so thrillin'.

So I tried chattin' with the Major's secretary, a Lieutenant Barnes. The Major must have picked him out on account of that serious face of his.

First off, I had an idea Barnes was sad just because he was detailed at this soggy place instead of bein' sent to France. I asks him sort of sympathizin' how long he's been here. He says three months.

"In this hole?" says I. "How do you keep from goin' bug-house?"

"I don't mind it," says he. "I find the work quite interesting."

"But evenin's?" I suggests.

"I write to my wife," says he.

I wanted to ask him what about, but I choked it back. "Oh, yes," says I.

"Of course. Any youngsters at home!"

"No," says he prompt. "Life is complicated enough without children."

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "They'd sort of help, I should think."

He shakes his head and glares gloomy out of the window. "I cannot agree with you," says he. "Perhaps you have never seriously considered just what it means to be a parent."

"Maybe not," says I, "but----"

"Few seem to do so," he breaks in. "Just think: one begins by putting two lives in jeopardy."

"Let's pa.s.s over that," I says hasty.

He sighs. "If we only could," says he. "And then---- Well, there you are--saddled with the task of caring for another human being, of keeping him in good health, of molding his character, of planning and directing his whole career, from boyhood on."

"Some are girls, though," I suggests.

He shudders. "So much the worse," says he. "Girl babies are such delicate creatures; all babies are, in fact. Do you know the average rate of infant mortality in this country? Just think of the hundreds of thousands who do not survive the teething period. Imagine the anxieties, the sleepless nights, the sad little tragedies which come to so many homes. Then the epidemic diseases--measles, scarlet fever, meningitis.

Let them survive all those, and what has the parent to face but the battle with other plagues, mental and moral? Think of the number of weak-minded children there are in the world; of perverts, criminally inclined. It is staggering. But if you escape all that, if your children are well and normal, as some are, then you must consider this: Suppose anything should happen to either or both of the parents? What of the little boy or girl? You have seen orphan asylums, I suppose. Have you ever stopped to----"

And then, just as he had me feelin' like I ought to be led out and shot at sunrise, the old Major comes bustlin' in fussy. I could have fallen on his neck.

"All ready!" says he. "Now I'll show you a fighting machine, young man, that is the last word in mechanical genius."

"You can show me anything, Major," says I, "so long as it ain't a morgue or a State's prison."

And he sure had some boiler-plate bus out there champin' at the bit. It looked just as frisky as the Flatiron Buildin', squattin' in the middle of the field, this young Fort Sloc.u.m with the caterpillar wheels sunk in the mud.

"Stuck, ain't she?" I asked the Major.

"We shall see," says he, noddin' to one of his staff, who proceeds to do a semaph.o.r.e act with his arms.

An answerin' snort comes from inside the thing, a purry sort of rumble that grows bigger and bigger, and next I knew, it starts wallowin' right at us. It keeps comin' and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin'

for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. It gives a lurch, like a cow playin' leap-frog, and over she comes, still pointed our way.

"Hey, Major!" I calls out above the roar. "Can they see where they're goin' in there? Hadn't we better give 'em room?"

"Don't move, please," says he.

"Just as you say," says I; "only I ain't strong for bein' rolled into pie-crust."

"There's no danger," says he. "I merely wish you to see how---- There!

Look!"