“Four of their drums were instruments which they had captured from the enemy in Alsace, and ma-an, what a beating was imposed upon those sheepskins!  ’I’d very much admire to have them bush Germans a-watchin’ me today!’ said the drummer before the march started.  The Old 15th doesn’t say ‘Boche’ when it refers to the foe it beat.  ‘Bush’ is the word it uses, and it throws in ‘German’ for good measure.

“Twenty abreast the heroes marched through a din that never ceased.  They were as soldierly a lot as this town, now used to soldierly outfits, has ever seen.  They had that peculiar sort of half careless, yet wholly perfect, step that the French display.  Their lines were straight, their rifles at an even angle, and they moved along with the jaunty ease and lack of stiffness which comes only to men who have hiked far and frequently.

“The colored folks on the official stand cut loose with a wild, swelling shriek of joy as the Police Band fell out at 60th Street and remained there to play the lads along when necessary and when—­now entirely itself—­the khaki-clad regiment filling the street from curb to curb, stepped by.

“Colonel Hayward, with his hand at salute, turned and smiled happily as he saw his best friend, former Governor Whitman, standing with his other good friend, Governor Al Smith, with their silk tiles raised high over their heads.  It was the Governor’s first review in New York and the first time he and Mr. Whitman had got together since Inauguration Day.  They were of different parties, but they were united in greeting Colonel Bill and his Babies.

“From the stand, from the Knickerbocker Club across the street, from the nearby residences and from the curbing sounded shouts of individual greetings for the commander and his staff.  But these were quickly drowned as a roar went up for Lieutenant Europe’s band, with its commander at the head—­not swinging a baton like a common ordinary drum-major, but walking along with the uniform and side-arms of an officer.

“‘The Salute to the 85th,’ which they learned from their comrade regiment of the French Army of General Gouraud, was what they were playing, a stirring thing full of bugle calls and drum rolls, which Europe says is the best march he ever heard.

“So swiftly did the platoons sweep by that it took a quick eye to recognize a brother or a son or a lover or a husband; but the eyes in the stand were quick, and there were shouts of ‘Oh, Bill!’ ’Hey, boy, here’s your mammy!’ ‘Oliver, look at your baby!’ (It wasn’t learned whether this referred to a feminine person or one of those posthumous children Colonel Hayward spoke about.) ’Hallelujah, Sam!  There you are, back home again!’

“Half way down the ranks of the