A little later when I was returning from that job, walking slowly along the trench, Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I glanced up to where he and Heinie stood with their rifles thrust between the sandbags and their grimy fists clutching barrel and butt. "Hello, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How are you, Joe?" "Commong ça va?" inquired Heinie, evidently mortified at his situation and condition, but putting on the careless front of a gunman in a strange ward. Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc, what’s the good word?" "France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know a better word?" "Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what’s your little graft over here, Doc?" "You and I reverse rôles, Pick-em-up; you _stop_ bullets; _I_ pick ’em up--after you’re through with ’em." "The hell you say!" he retorted, grinning. "Well, grab it from me, if it wasn’t for the Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in the old 50th would make this war look like Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only this here show is all fi-_nally_, with Bingle’s Band playin’ circus tunes an’ the supes hollerin’ like they seen real money." He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled the "coke" graft in the 50th while Heinie was perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes. "Well, ain’t we in Dutch--us three guys!" he remarked with forced carelessness. "We sure done it that time." "Did you do business with Duck?" inquired Pick-em-up, curiously. "Not so he noticed it. Joe, can’t you and Heinie rise to your opportunities? This is the first time in your lives you’ve ever been decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can’t you start in and live straight--think straight? You’re wearing the uniform of God’s own soldiers; you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with men who are fighting God’s own battle. The fate of every woman, every child, every unborn baby in Europe--and in America, too--depends on your bravery. If you don’t win out, it will be our turn next. If you don’t stop the Huns--if you don’t come back at them and wipe them out, the world will not be worth inhabiting." I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you know what your trade has been, and what it is called. Here’s your chance to clean yourself. Joe--you’ve dealt out misery, insanity, death, to women and children. You’re called the Coke King of the East Side. Joe, we’ll get you sooner or later. Don’t take the trouble to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and a fresh deal? Why not resolve to live straight from this moment--here where you have taken your place in the ranks among real men--here where this army stands for liberty, for the right to live! You’ve got your chance to become a real man; so has Heinie. And when you come back, we’ll stand by you----" "An’ gimme a job choppin’ tickets in the subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec’ me to squeal f’r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin’ in it an’ I carry a banner. But there ain’t nothing into it. How’s a guy to live if there ain’t no graft into nothin’?"