And even as he stared young Hatton fixed him with his eye, and then came over to him and said, “It’s all right, Werner.”

Buzz Werner could only salute with awkward respect, while with one great gulp his heart slid back into normal place.  He had not thought that Hatton was so tall, or so broad-shouldered, or so—­

He no more thought of telling the other men that he had once knocked this man down than he thought of knocking him down again.  He would almost as soon have thought of taking a punch at the President.

The day before Thanksgiving Buzz was told he might have a holiday.  Also he was given an address and a telephone number in New York City and told that if he so desired he might call at that address and receive a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner.  They were expecting him there.  That the telephone exchange was Murray Hill, and the street Madison Avenue meant nothing to Buzz.  He made the short trip to New York, floundered about the city, found every one willing and eager to help him find the address on the slip, and brought up, finally, in front of the house on Madison Avenue.  It was a large, five-story stone place, and Buzz supposed it was a flat, of course.  He stood off and surveyed it.  Then he ascended the steps and rang the bell.  They must have been waiting for him.  The door was opened by a large amiable-looking, middle-aged man who said, “Well, well!  Come in, come in, my boy!” a great deal as the folks in Chippewa, Wisconsin, might have said it.  The stout old party also said he was glad to see him and Buzz believed it.  They went upstairs, much to Buzz’s surprise.  In Buzz’s experience upstairs always meant bedrooms.  But in this case it meant a great bright sitting room, with books in it, and a fireplace, very cheerful.  There were not a lot of people in the room.  Just a middle-aged woman in a soft kind of dress, who came to him without any fuss and the first thing he knew he felt acquainted.  Within the next fifteen minutes or so some other members of the family seemed to ooze in, unnoticeably.  First thing you knew, there they were.  They didn’t pay such an awful lot of attention to you.  Just took you for granted.  A couple of young kids, a girl of fourteen, and a boy of sixteen who asked you easy questions about the army till you found yourself patronising him.  And a tall black-haired girl who made you think of the vamps in the movies, only her eyes were different.  And then, with a little rush, a girl about his own age, or maybe younger—­he couldn’t tell—­who came right up to him, and put out her hand, and gave him a grip with her hard little fist, just like a boy, and said, “I’m Joyce Ladd.”

“Pleased to meetcha,” mumbled Buzz.  And then he found himself talking to her quite easily.  She knew a surprising lot about the army.

“I’ve two brothers over there,” she said.  “And all my friends, of course.”  He found out later, quite by accident, that this boyish, but strangely appealing person belonged to some sort of Motor Service League, and drove an automobile, every day, from eight to six, up and down and round and about New York, working like a man in the service of the country.  He never would have believed that the world held that kind of girl.