I mess with the Headquarters Company, and James Collintine, who has the job of looking after us, always welcomes Sunday morning because it gives a chance for a friendly chat between the two of us. James had been a deep-water sailor for a good many years since he first left his home in the Old Country, but has taken up with the Infantry because it gives more prospects for fighting service in this war. This morning he said, “Father Duffy, did ye iver hear of Father Hearrn of my parish in the County Longford?” “No, Jim, I never did.” “Well, he was the grandest man in all Ireland. There was eight hundhred min in Maynooth College where they study to be priests and he could lick ivery dam wan of thim. He was a fine big man, six foot two in his stockin’ feet. He used to come down the sthreet with a big stick in his hand, and if anybody gave anny throuble he’d knock you down just as quick as look at you. The whole parish loved him. Wanst there was a fight in the village green between the peelers and the people, and Father Hearrn was sent for to keep the peace and he came down the road bowling over the peelers as if they was nine pins. There niver was a nicer man within the four seas of Ireland.” A soldier of Company K came to my tent one afternoon last week and stood at the entrance fumbling his hat in his hand like an Irish tenant of the old days that had not the rent to pay the landlord. “What’s the matter, Tom?” “I took a dhrop too much, and Captain Hurley got very mad about it and brought me up before Major Moynahan. I wouldn’t mind if they’d fine me and be through with it, for I know I deserve it. But the Major and the Captain say that they’re not going to stand anything like this, and that they won’t lave me go to the war. And sure, Father Duffy, if I couldn’t go to the war it’d kill me.” The smile that came to my lips at this very Irish way of putting it was suppressed when I thought of the number of men born in the country who were worried sick lest the Draft should catch them and send them to the war. I assured Tom that I would use my powers of persuasion with the Captain and the Major to give him his heart’s desire, if he would take the pledge. But we shall keep him worried by a suspended sentence until we get him safely away from the temptations of New York.