is the Biltmore to a man in uniform, anyway?” I remember thinking to myself as I lay there with my nose pressed flat to an ant hill, “all the best parts of it are arid districts, waste places, limitless Saharas to him.  Death, where is thy sting?” I continued, as an outraged ant assaulted my nose.  The world came throbbing back.  I felt myself being dragged violently away from my resting place.  I was choking.  Bidding farewell to the ants, I prepared myself to swoon when gradually, as if from a great distance, I heard the voice of my P.O.  He was almost crying.

“Take him out,” he pleaded; “for Gord sake, take him out.  He’s hurtin’ our gun.”

[Illustration:  “ONE FOURTH OF THE ENTIRE PELHAM FIELD ARTILLERY PASSED OVER MY BODY”]

This remark gave me the strength to rise, but not gracefully.  My intention was to address a few handpicked words to this P.O. of mine, but fortunately for my future peace of mind I was beyond utterance.  Weakly I tottered in the direction of the gun, hoping to support myself upon it.

“Hey, come away from that gun!” howled the P.O.  “Don’t let him touch it, fellers,” he pleaded.  “Don’t let him even go near it.  He’ll spoil it.  He’ll completely destroy it.”

“Say, Buddy,” said the Chief to me, and how I hated the ignominy of the word, “I guess I’ll take you out of the game for to-day.  I’m responsible for Government property, and you are altogether too big a risk.”

“What shall I do?” I asked, huskily.  “Where shall I go?”

“Do?” he repeated, in a thoughtful voice.  “Go?  Well, here’s where you can go,” and he told me, “and this is what you can do when you get there,” and as I departed rather hastily he told me this also.  The entire parade ground heard him.  How shall I ever be able to hold up my head again in Camp?  I departed the spot, but only under one boiler; however, I made fair speed.  Like a soldier returning from a week in the trenches, I sought the comfort and seclusion of the Y.M.C.A.  Here I witnessed a checker contest of a low order between two unscrupulous brothers.  They had a peculiar technique completely their own.  It consisted of arts and dodges and an extravagant use of those adjectives one is commonly supposed to shun.

“Say, there’s a queen down at the end of the room,” one of them would suddenly exclaim, and while the other brother was gazing eagerly in that direction he would deliberately remove several of his men from the board.  But the other brother, who was not so balmy as he looked, would occasionally discover this slight irregularity and proceed to express his opinion of it by word of mouth, which for sheer force of expression was in the nature of a revelation to me.  It was appalling to sit there and watch those two young men, who had evidently at one time come from a good home, sit in God’s bright sunshine and cheat each other throughout the course of an afternoon and lie out of it in the most obvious manner.