“Who?” Panama repeated, assuming an impatient and disappointed air. “Why, of all the frozen-skulled, lame-brained choice assortment of prize boobs, they had to wish you on me!” Lefty looked at Williams with questioning eyes, then seeing that the other man was in earnest, struggled for words as he ran to grasp the sergeant’s hands, wringing them furiously and fairly shouting his gratitude. “You mean, I’m going to Nicaragua with you? Oh, Gee, Panama—you don’t know what that means to me! Honest—say, I’m so tickled I just——” “Aw, apple sauce!” Panama interrupted, “I said you’re going. Ain’t that enough? What do you want to do—sing a mammy song about it?” “But I want to thank you for what you’ve done for me!” the boy persisted. “Don’t thank me. I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it. If I had my way, you’d have gone back to a ship!” A smile of understanding crept across Lefty’s happy face. He knew well enough that Panama didn’t mean a word of what he had just said. “Well, why don’t you tell them you don’t want me with you?” “It’s too late now. I can’t get another man ready in time,” Panama lied beautifully. “Now stop askin’ silly questions and get that plane ready. We got to leave in the mornin’!” “Are we going by plane?” Lefty asked enthusiastically. “You mean, we’re going to fly all the way?” Panama shook his head in a hopeless manner, and with an expression of disgust, muttered, “In the Aviation Corps and fly? Don’t be silly. We’ll bobsled it all the way!” Lefty laughed at his friend’s tolerant dry humor and reached down for the hand pump, turning back to his work on the tire in a happy, anticipating frame of mind, while the sergeant leaned against the fuselage of the plane, his mind wandering away to the hospital across the field and the little nurse inside. His hand mechanically reached to the breast pocket of his blouse wherein were hidden the snapshots of Elinor he had just taken from her desk. He smiled confidently, reached into his pocket, removed the photographs and gazing down upon the laughing eyes of the lovely girl, his entire manner softened under the spell cast over him by her likeness. For the want of someone to confide in, he turned to Lefty and asked, “Hey, bozo, have you got a girl?” Phelps dropped his pump and raised himself, casting a hurried glance in the direction of the hospital and smiling confidently. “Yes—that is, I think so.” Panama showed signs of interest and understanding in the romance of his fellow man. “Is she good-looking?” “Great!” Williams had his doubts concerning this. “No woman in the world could possibly be as pretty as Elinor,” he assured himself, though tactfully refraining from saying so aloud, adding instead, “Well, if you got a girl and she knows it, you’d better say good-by to her ’cause I just said good-by to mine!” “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve got a sweetheart?” Lefty asked, tickled silly over this opportunity of gaining a chance to chide Panama. “Is it possible?”