“That depends a good deal on whether a political pull is any good over there,” said Uncle Ike, as he reached for the yellow paper of tobacco and filled up the clay pipe again. “_I think a soldier is the noblest work of God_. A young man who has got everything just as he wants it at home, parents who love him, and perhaps a girl who believes he is the dearest man that ever wore a choker collar; who hears that his country needs help, and gives up his spring mattress, his happy home, his evenings with the dearest girl in the world, gives up baking powder biscuits and strawberry shortcake, and enlists to go to Cuba, and sleeps on the ground in the mud, gets malaria, and fights on his knees when he is too weak to stand up, deserves something better than decayed meat, and I believe the people who furnished that stuff for the boys are going right straight to hell when they die,” and a look of revenge and horror and indignation came over the old man's face that the boy had not seen before in all the years he had known his uncle. “No, sir,” said he; “the smell of that canned beef will stick to the garments of those who prepared it and those who furnished it to those boys; and if one of them got into heaven by crawling under the canvas, every angel there would hold her nose and make up a face, and they would send for the devil with his pitchfork to' throw him out. The verdict of no board of investigation is going to be received as a passport to heaven.” [Illustration: A dog biscuit would have been mince pie 011]