Sam had never seen a medal that close before, and his keen lens absorbed every detail--the ribbon, the way it was fastened to the cloth, the broad, strong chest behind it. Then he looked into the man's firm, determined, kindly face with its piercing black eyes and closely trimmed mustache, and then over his back and legs. He was wondering now where the ball had struck him, and what particular part of his person had been sacrificed in earning so distinguishing a mark of his country's gratitude. Then he turned to the woman, and a slight frown gathered on his face when he realized that she alone had blocked his way to the open air and the deck beyond. He could step over any number of men whenever the mass of human beings crushing his ribs and shoulder-blades began once more to move, but a woman--a tired woman--with a boy--out on a jamboree like this, with---- Here Sam stopped, and instinctively felt around among his loose change for his key. Number 15 was all right, any way. At the touch of the key Sam's face once more resumed its contented look, the lizards darting out to play, as usual. The boy gave a sharp cry. The woman put her hand on the child's head, smoothed it softly, and looked up in the face of the man with the medal. "And you can get no state-room, George?" she asked in a plaintive tone. "State-room, Kitty! Why, we couldn't get a pillow. I tried to get a shake-down some'ers, but half these people won't get six feet of space to lie down in, let alone a bed." "Well, I don't know what we're going to do. Freddie's got a raging fever; I can't hold him here in my arms all night." Sam shifted his weight to the other foot and concentrated his camera. The man with the medal and the woman with the boy were evidently man and wife. Sam had no little Freddie of his own--no Kitty, in fact--not yet--no home really that he could call his own--never more than a month at a time. A Pullman lower or a third story front in a three-dollar-a-day hotel was often his bed, and a marble-top table with iron legs screwed to the floor of a railroad restaurant and within sound of a big-voiced gateman bawling out the trains, generally his board. Freddie looked like a nice boy, and she looked like a nice woman. Man was O. K., anyhow--didn't give medals of honor to any other kind. Both of them fools, though, or they wouldn't have brought that kid out---- Again the child turned its head and uttered a faint cry, this time as if in pain. Sam freed his arm from the hip bone of the passenger on his left, and said in a sympathetic voice--unusual for Sam: "Is this your boy?" The drummer was not a born conversationalist outside of trade matters, but he had to begin somewhere. "Yes, sir." The woman looked up and a flickering smile broke over her lips. "Our only one, sir." "Sick, ain't he?" "Yes, sir; got a high fever."