Before he went to the army "Willie" Smith had been a bashful boy who blushed when the guests spoke to him, but he faced them now with the assurance of a vaudeville entertainer as he introduced his "buddy": "Pinkey Fripp, of Wyoming--a hero, ladies and gentlemen! The grittiest little soldier in the A.E.F., with a medal to prove it!" Followed an account of the deed of reckless courage for which Pinkey had been decorated, and the Smith boy told it so well that everyone's eyes had tears in them. Mrs. Appel, fumbling for her handkerchief, dropped her ball of yarn over the railing, where the cat wound it among the rose bushes so effectively that to disentangle it were an endless task. The subject of the eulogy stared back unabashed at the guests, who stared at him in admiration and curiosity. Unflattered, unmoved, he sagged to one side of the bare-backed horse with the easy grace of one accustomed to the saddle. No one just like him ever had come under the observation of the august patrons of The Colonial. Pinkey Fripp was about five feet four and square as a bulldog. "Hard-boiled" is a word which might have been coined specially to describe him. The cropped hair on his round head was sandy, his skin a sun-blistered red, and his lips had deep cracks in them. His nose did not add to his beauty any more than the knife-scar around his neck, which looked as if someone had barely failed in an attempt to cut off his head. The feature that saved the young fellow's face from a look of unmitigated "toughness" was his pale gray eyes, whose steady, fearless look seemed to contend with a whimsical gleam of humour. Pinkey listened, with the disciplined patience of the army, to the recital of the exploit that had won the War Cross for him, but there was a peculiar glint in his light eyes. As Smith drew to a conclusion, Pinkey slowly lifted his leg, stiffened by a machine-gun bullet, over the horse's neck and sat sideways. The applause was so vociferous, so spontaneous and hearty, that nothing approaching it ever had been heard at The Colonial. But it stopped as suddenly, for in the middle of it Pinkey gathered himself and sprang through the air like a flying-squirrel, to bowl the Smith boy over. "You said you wouldn't tell about that 'Craw de gare,' ner call me a hero, an' you've gone and done it!" he said, accusingly, as he sat astride of him. "I got feelin's jest like grown-up folks, and I don't like to be laughed at. Sorry, Big Boy, but you got this comin'!" Thereupon, with a grin, Pinkey banged his host's head on the gravel.