Kilmer at this time was the father of four children, named respectively Kenton Sinclair, Rose, Deborah Clanton and Michael Barry. One day he appeared in my office on an errand of business relating to the handling of his literary property. He was, in outward effect, perfectly composed, an admirable picture of a young soldier. It was then, in what followed, that he displayed the most extraordinary, the most amazing, measure of spiritual stature that I ever observed in any man or ever read of in any human book. Settled, with his customary air, in my chair, he demanded some pipe tobacco. I had none. And for this he heartily damned me out. Then he said: “Bob, my affairs are somewhat in disarray.” Thinking that perhaps he wanted to borrow two dollars, or something like that, I asked: “What’s the matter, Joyce?” “Well,” he answered, quite in his ordinary way, “several days ago Rose died; yesterday my son, Christopher, was born; Kenton is with my wife at her mother’s; my family is, in fact, very much scattered; I’m expecting to go to France within a few days--and I have many other difficulties.” That was all he said as to this. He then talked excellent business. I went to the elevator with him. We shook hands more quietly than usual; he said, “Good-bye, Bob;” and the door of the car closed upon him, standing erect in his military overcoat, looking somewhat serious. That was all. From Company H. Kilmer was transferred, within a short time, to Headquarters Company, and exchanged his eight hours a day of violent physical exercise (“most deadening to the brain, a useful anodyne for one, coming as it did after my grief,” he wrote in an intimate letter) for exacting but “interesting” statistical work. Though called Senior Regimental Statistician he continued to rank as a private. His work was under the direction of the Regimental Chaplain, Father Francis Patrick Duffy. He was thankful, he wrote from Mineola in a letter at this time, that he was not with the Seventh at Spartanburg, as from Mineola he could telephone to his wife every night, and he said: “I’ll be an accomplished cuss when I get back from the wars--I’ll know how to typewrite and to serve Mass and to sing the ‘Boston Burglar.’” VII