Oh, yes; I've figured out since that he didn't mean more'n half of it, or couldn't help lookin' at civilians that way after four years at West Point, or thought he had to. But that's what I get handed to me when I've dropped all the little things that seemed important to me and walks in to chuck what I had to offer Uncle Sam on the recruitin' table. Some kind of inspectin' officer, I've found out he was, makin' the rounds to see that the sergeants didn't loaf on the job. And, just to show that no young patriot in a last year's Panama and a sport-cut suit could slip anything over on him, he shoots in a few crisp questions on his own account. "Married, you say?" says he. "Since when?" "Oh, this century," says I. "Last February, to get it nearer." He sniffs disagreeable without sayin' why. Also he takes a hand when it comes to testin' me to see whether I'm club-footed or spavined. Course, I'm no perfect male like you see in the knit underwear ads, but I've got the usual number of toes and teeth, my wind is fairly good, and I don't expect my arteries have begun to harden yet. He listens to my heart action and measures my chest expansion. Then I had to name the different colors and squint through a tube at some black dots on a card. And the further we went the more he scowled. Finally he shakes his head at the sergeant. "Rejected," says he. "Eh?" says I. "You--you don't mean I'm--turned down?" He nods. "Underweight, and your eyes don't focus," says he snappy. "Here's your card. That's all." Yes, it was a jolt. I expect I stood there blinkin' stupid at him for a minute or so before I had sense enough to drift out on the sidewalk. And I might as well admit I was feelin' mighty low. I didn't know whether to hunt up the nearest hospital, or sit down on the curb and wait until they came after me with the stretcher-cart. Anyway, I knew I must be a physical wreck. And to think I hadn't suspected it before! Somehow I dragged back to the office, and a while later Mr. Ellins discovers me slumped in my chair with my chin down. "Mars and Mercury!" says he. "You haven't been through a battle so soon, have you?" At that, I tries to brace up a bit and pass it off light. "Why didn't someone tell me I was a chronic invalid?" says I, after sketchin' out how my entry had been scratched by the chesty one. "I wonder where I could get a pair of crutches and a light-runnin' wheel chair?" "Bah!" says he. "Some of those army officers have red-tape brains and no more common sense than he guinea-pigs. What in the name of the Seven Shahs did he think was the matter with you?" "My eyes don't track and I weigh under the scale," says I. "I expect there's other things, too. Maybe my floatin' ribs are water-logged and my memory muscle-bound. But I'm a wreck, all right." "We'll see about that," says Old Hickory, pushin' a buzzer.