And just before young Mr. Francis applied again for the job of ridding the seas of _U_-boats (it should be mentioned incidentally that about half an hour earlier his father had unlocked a pair of pants and other gent’s furnishings for the trip) the potential admiral saw the burnished sign on a corner saloon. He got off the car carefully, drank seven glasses of water in the saloon and then eased his way into the presence of the surgeon who had given him the gate on Saturday. “I told you before you were many pounds underweight, young man,” said the surgeon. “It’s utterly useless for you to come around here when——” “But that was away last week, Doc,” wheezed young Mr. Francis. “Give me another try at your scales.” “My Gordon!” cried the surgeon, glancing at the scales and uttering his favorite cuss-word. “Saturday you were seven pounds under weight and to-day you’re a pound overweight! How’d yuh ever do it?” “I’ve heard of lads getting their teeth pulled to get out of serving Uncle Sam, but you’re the first guy I ever heard of who made a fool of his stummick to get into the Navy,” grinned Bos’n Carroll as Walter Francis bared his brawny arm for the vaccine. “Welcome to our ocean, Kid!” NEVER TALK BACK “——and then the Germans charged, and the captain shouted, ‘Shoot at will,’ and I shouted, ‘Which one is he?’ And then they took away my gun, and now I can’t play any more.” GOING HOME Visitor—“And what did you do when the shell struck you?” Bored Tommy—“Sent mother a post-card to have my bed aired.” ENLISTED MEN TELL WHY THEY JOINED THE ARMY OUR first forces in France were volunteers, part of the old regular Army, though many of the enlistments were recent. The motives leading men to join such an army are varied and in many cases humorous or pathetic. A Y. M. C. A. secretary in France, who had won the confidence of the men with whom he was associated, wondered why each man had come. So he arranged that they should hand in cards telling why they had enlisted. Mr. Arthur Gleason presents some of the answers in the New York _Tribune_ as “the first real word from the soldier himself of why he has offered himself.” These replies came from two battalions of an infantry regiment, which, for military reasons can not be identified. Mr. Gleason puts them in several groups. One is the sturdily patriotic. Thus, one soldier says: “My reason in 1907 was that I liked the service and wanted to try for something new and bright for my country.”