“Well,” I thought, “this will be easy!” I started to walk through when I saw standing in the sentry box a hardboiled buck private—an American. In his hand he had a regular New York billy stick. He saw me, and it was too late to turn back. He walked out and stuck out his jaw, like a bulldog, and said, “Hey, guy, where you goin’?” Of course, he couldn’t tell me from a private, so I got just as hardboiled as he was and stuck out my jaw and said, “Hello, Buddie! What are you doin’?” “Where yuh going?” he demanded gruffly. “Damned if I know, Bud,” I growled. “I’m getting tired of hanging around Paris. I’m tired of it. I want to get to the front or where the front was. You know, Buddie, they told me when they drafted me into the Army I’d get to the front. I’ve never even heard a gun fire. I’ve been stationed in the rear all the time, and now the blamed war is over, and I ain’t never seen none of it. I’ll go back, and my girl will say, ‘Reuben, tell me about the war; what were you in?’ And, Buddy, won’t I feel like the devil when I have to ’fess up and tell them that I was a soldier in Paris?” I looked at his arm, and I saw that he had a wound stripe. “Looky there!” I snapped out proudly. “You’ve got a wound stripe, ain’t yuh?” “Yep,” he replied, equally proud. “Gosh, you’re lucky,” I said assuringly. “You’ve been to the front; tell me about it, for I ain’t never had no chance to talk to a real red-blooded guy what’s been to the front yet.” This was the prize stroke, for he broke loose and told me his whole story. He said he had been at Château-Thierry, in the Second Division, and was sore because the Marines got all the credit for it, while, as a matter of fact, it was his own regiment that did all the dirty work. He himself, according to his story, had attacked a machine gun nest alone, had got ten prisoners, and, incidentally, got wounded in the hip. I impressed upon him how lucky he was to have gotten through it alive; then I glanced at his chest and I saw upon it the green and yellow ribbon meaning Mexican Border Service. [Illustration: COLONEL BRERETON, MAJOR HASLETT AND OTHERS BEING DECORATED AT COBLENZ] “What decoration is that?” I asked, curiously, “the Medal of Honor?” “No,” he said, boisterously putting his finger on the ribbon. “You know what that is, don’t you?” “No,” I affirmed, “I ain’t never seen no decorations.” “Well,” he said, realizing he had an easy one, “why, that’s the Croix de Guerre.” I gripped him by the hand and slapped him on the shoulder and told him he was the most interesting man and the bravest man that I had ever met and that I sure wanted to meet him again, but that I had to browse on to-day and we would get together some night when we got paid and go to the Folies Bergère and see the theater. So the old boy offered me a chew of tobacco, took one himself and again proudly shaking his hand I passed on.