The Little Butcher was in an agony of suspense as to whether he could get his man before his engine failed him, and as he told his story it was plain to see the intensity, the desperate uncertainty, and the eagerness he had felt. "I knew my engine was going to conk out any second--could feel a sort of grate and grind in her, and that my revs. were dropping off. The Hun was drawing away a yard or two ... and I tell you I cursed the luck. I hung on, dead astern and pumping it into him and seeing my bullets fairly raking him. But he _wouldn't_ go down...." (His eyes gleamed as he spoke, his brows were drawn down, his whole face quivering with eagerness, with the revived excitement of the chase, the passionate desire for the downfall of his quarry.) "I began to think he'd get away. I'd never have forgiven myself--having him dead helpless like that, right at point-blank, and then losing him.... But I got him at last--and just in time. Got him, and crashed him good...." It all sounds very brutal perhaps--did certainly to the two infantrymen listening, fascinated. But--this was The Little Butcher; and he was out to kill. The end had come a few seconds later. The Hun pilot lurched forward; his machine plunged, rolled over, shot out and up, tail-slid, and then went spinning and "dead-leafing" down. The Little Butcher shut off his crippled engine, looked round and saw the Hun scout streaking for the lines, put his machine into a long glide and watched his second victim twist and twirl down and down, watched until he saw him hit and crash. He came down and made a landing on another 'drome, borrowed a tender, and in an hour was eating his dinner. I have said the two visitors did not like the story or the teller. They were, in fact, a little disgusted and sickened with both, and they said as much to their friend the C.O. when the others had left the table, and they three lingered over liqueurs. "Silly of me perhaps," said one, "but I hated the way that boy sort of licked his lips over the chance of catching that Hun unawares and shooting him down." The other wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "It was fifty times worse his hanging to that fellow who couldn't shoot back--when the observer was dead--and bringing him down in cold blood. Poor devil. Think of his feelings." "Little Butcher," said the first, "you named him well. Bloody-minded little butcher at that." "But hold on a minute," said the C.O. "I can't let you run away with these wrong notions of The Little Butcher. Have you any idea why he is so keen on killing Huns? Why he jumped at the chance to go up and get that one to-day, why he was in such a hurry to tackle the two, why he--well, why he is The Little Butcher?" "Lord knows," said one, and "Pure blood-thirstiness," the other.