"Yes," Dempsey was saying, "I'm _beaucoup_ sorry for these here frawgs. They're just bein' massacred--that's all it is--_massacred_. And there don't anybody take much notice, either. Say, somebody was tellin' me the other day just how many the French has lost since the beginnin' of the war. Just about one million. I wouldn't believe it, but it's straight. It was a French colonel that was tellin' me out to the Hispano factory day before yesterday, and he'd oughta know because he was through the battle of the Marne and the Soam, and everything." "Did he tell you in French?" inquired Ensign Peters, meaningly, for Dempsey's French was admittedly limited. "Pardon?" said Dempsey, and then, grasping the innuendo: "No, sir, he did _not_. Why, he talks English as good as you and me. That's another thing about these frawgs--they can all _parlez-vous_ any language. I never yet seen a Frenchie I couldn't talk to yet." "Did you ever see anybody you couldn't talk to yet, Steve?" suggested the chief yeoman. "Here, you, how d'ya get that way? Who was it I seen th' other night out walking in the Boy de Bullone with a skirt? And I guess you wasn't talkin'--why, you was talkin' so fast you had to help out with your hands, just like a frawg.... No, as I say, I feel sorry for these French in more ways than one." "Just how do you display that sorrow?" asked Ensign Madden. Dempsey hesitated an instant, scratched his head, and very carefully drew a line on the tracing-paper in front of him. "Well, sir," he said, finally, "I displayed it last Sunday." Then he relapsed into silence, and resumed work on the drawing. But as he worked he grinned quietly--a provocative grin which inspired curiosity. "What did you do last Sunday?" prodded Peters. The grin widened as Steve glanced up from the board. He laid aside his instruments, tilted back in his chair, and said: "Well, it wasn't very regular, what I done last Sunday, but I'll tell you if you don't have me up before a court.... You remember last Sunday was a swell day? Spring in the air, I guess, and everything, and everybody was out walking like Matthews, here, with a Jane. I 'ain't got a Jane, of course----" "What!" roared Matthews. "I 'ain't got a Jane, of course, so I decides to take a little look around all by myself. Well, I goes down the Chomps-Eleezy feelin' pretty good and sorta peppy and lookin' for trouble. I see all them army heroes--the vets and the dentists and the S O S--each with a skirt, and I passes Matthews, here, with _his_ skirt clingin' to him like a cootie." "Cut it out, you big stiff," interposed Matthews.