Now, get that
straight and don't start whinnyin' like a buncha horses and gum the
game.'
"Well, I stop there for breath, and Rathbone, who's right on the job,
comes across with another 'Amen,' and Reilly, who's a good Catholic,
sez, _'Pax vobiscum_.'
"So that's all right, and I give her the gun and go ahead.
"'This here _poiloo_,' I sez, 'I don't know much about him, but he
was a regular fellow and a good old bird and treated his mother
swell and everything, and I guess if we was wise to everything he'd
done we'd be proud to be here and we'd 'a' brung a lotta flowers and
things. He most likely was at the battle of the Marne and the Soam
and Verdun, and maybe he was at Chateau-Teery. Anyway, he was a
grand fighter, and done his bit all the time and kep' the Huns from
passin'."
'And I wanta tell you that we gotta hand it to these French, because
they may be little guys, but they carry the longest bayonets I ever
see in any man's army.'
"'Amen,' sez all the doughboys and the gobs, except one that yells,
'Alleluia!' He musta been from the South or somewheres.
"'And so,' I sez, 'we're proud to give this frawg a good send-off,
and even if we ain't got a real chaplain and the guns to fire a
salute with, we're doin' the poor widow a lotta good, and that's
somethin'--I'll say it is.
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