“Well,” he cried irritably, “pick it up.  Be quick.  Pick it up—­all of it!”

“Pick it up,” I replied through a cloud of mist, “you can’t pick up flour.  You can pick up apples and pears and cabbages and cigarette butts for that matter, but you can’t pick up flour.”

The commissary steward suddenly handed me a piece of paper upon which he had been writing frantically.

“Take this to your P.O.,” he said shrilly, “and take yourself along with it.

“A defect in the sack,” I gasped, departing.

“And there’s a defect in you,” he shouted after me, “your brain is exempted.”

“Take this man and kill him if you can find any slight technical excuse for it,” the note ran, “and if you can’t kill him, give him an inaptitude discharge with my compliments, and if you are unable to do either of these two things, at least keep him away from my outfit.  We don’t want to see his silly face around here any more at all.”

The P.O. read it to me with great delight.

“I guess we’ll have to send you to Siberia after all,” he said thoughtfully, “only that country is in far too delicate a condition for you to meddle with at present.  Go away to somewhere where I can’t see you,” he continued bitterly, “for I feel inclined to do you an injury, something permanent and serious.”  I went right away.

Aug. 11th. Mother has just paid one of her belligerent visits to the camp, and as a consequence I am on the point of having a flock of brainstorms.  Some misguided person had been telling her about the Officer Training School up here, and she arrived fired with the ambition to enter me into that institution without further delay.  True to form, she bounded headlong into the matter without consulting my feelings by accosting the very first commissioned officer she met.  He happened to be an Ensign, but he might as well have been a Vice-Admiral for all Mother cared.

“Tell me, young man,” she said to this Ensign, going directly to the point, “do you see any reason why my boy Oswald should not go to that place where they make all the Ensigns?”

“Yes,” said the officer firmly, “I do.”

“Oh, you do,” snapped Mother angrily, “and pray tell me what that reason might be?”

“Your son Oswald,” replied the Ensign laconically.

“What!” exclaimed Mother, “you mean to say that my Oswald is not good enough to go to your silly old school?”

“No,” replied the Ensign, weakening pitifully before the withering fury of an aroused mother, “but you see, my dear madam, he has not a first class rating.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Mother.

“Crossed anchors,” replied the Ensign.

“I didn’t mean that,” continued Mother, “I think the whole thing is very mysterious and silly, and I’m not going to let it stop here.  You can trust me, Oswald,” she went on soothingly.  “I am going to see the Commander of the station myself.  I am going this very instant.”