April 30th. I took my bar-keeping pal home over the last week-end liberty.  It was a mistake.  He admits it himself.  Mother will never have him in the house again.  Mother could never get him in the house again.  He fears her.  The first thing he did was to mix poor dear grandfather a drink that caused the old gentleman to forget his game leg which had been damaged in battles, ranging anywhere from the Mexican to the Spanish wars, according to grandfather’s mood at the time he is telling the story, but which I believe, according to a private theory of mine, was really caught in a folding bed.  However it was, grandfather forgot all about this leg of his entirely and insisted on dancing with Nora, our new maid.  Mother, of course, was horrified.  But not content with that, this friend of mine concocted some strange beverage for the pater which so delighted him that he loaned my so-called pal the ten spot I had been intending to borrow.  The three of them sat up until all hours of the night playing cards and telling ribald stories.  As mother took me upstairs to bed she gazed down on her father-in-law and her husband in the clutches of this demon and remarked bitterly to me: 

“Like father, like son,” and I knew that she was thoroughly determined to make both of them pay dearly for their pleasant interlude.  Breakfast the next morning was a rather trying ordeal.  Grandfather once more resorted to his game leg with renewed vigor, referring several times to the defense of the Alamo, so I knew he was pretty low in his mind.  Father withdrew at the sight of bacon.  Mother laughed scornfully as he departed.  My friend ate a hearty breakfast and kept a sort of a happy-go-lucky monologue throughout its entire course.  I took him out walking afterward and forgot to bring him back.

[Illustration:  “THE FIRST THING HE DID WAS TO MIX POOR DEAR GRANDFATHER A DRINK”]

April 31st. Have just come off guard duty and feel quite exhausted.  The guns are altogether too heavy.  I can think of about five different things I could remove from them without greatly decreasing their utility.  The first would be the barrel.  The artist who drew the picture in the last camp paper of Dawn appearing in the form of a beautiful woman must have had more luck than I have ever had.  I think he would have been closer to the truth if he had put her in a speeding automobile on its way home from a road house.  It surely is a proof of discipline to hear the mocking, silver-toned laughter of women ring out in the night only ten feet away and not drop your gun and follow it right through the barbed wire.  After the war, I am going to buy lots of barbed wire and cut it up into little bits just to relieve my feelings.

Last night I had the fright of my life.  Some one was fooling around the fence in the darkness.

“Who’s there?” I cried.

“Why, I’m Kaiser William,” came the answer in a subdued voice.