Then this latest catastrophe. The Stanton Blisses had been away from home for three weeks or more, house-partyin' and motorin' through the mountains. Poor Wilfred had had to stay behind. What a stupidly distressin' thing war was, wasn't it? But he had been asked to spend his nights and Sundays with a college chum whose home was several miles nearer the works. And then they had come back to find this scribbled note. Things had been gettin' worse and worse, Wilfred wrote. Some young hoodlums around the plant had shouted after him as he drove off in his car. Even young girls. The men had been surly to him, and that beastly foreman---- Well, he wasn't goin' to stand for it, that was all. He didn't know just what he was goin' to do, but he was clearin' out. They'd hear from him later. They had. This six-word message from Philadelphia, dated nearly two weeks ago, was also waitin'. It said that he'd enlisted, was all right, and for them not to worry. Nothin' more. You couldn't blame mother for bein' stirred up. Her Wilfred had gone. Somewhere in some army camp or other, or at some naval trainin' station, the son and heir of the house of Bliss was minglin' with the coarse sons of the common people, was eatin' common food, was wearin' common clothes, was goin' up against the common thing generally. And that wasn't the worst of it. Where? Why didn't Mr. Robert tell her where? And couldn't he get him away at once? Mr. Robert had almost gone hoarse tryin' to explain why he couldn't. But after every try she'd come back with this wail: "Oh, but you don't understand what it is to be a mother!" "Thank the stars I don't!" says he, as he marches out of the room. I was for clearin' out so he'd be free to shoo her in any style he wanted to. We'd been havin' dinner with the Ellinses, Vee and I, and it was time to go home anyway. But there's no budgin' Vee. "Don't you think Torchy might find out where he is?" she suggests. "Bein' in the army himself, you know, and so clever at that sort of thing, I should think----" "Why, to be sure," breaks in Mr. Robert, perkin' up all of a sudden and starin' at me. "Lieutenant Torchy to the rescue, of course. He's the very one." "Ah, say, how'd you get that way?" says I. "Back up!" He's off, though, callin' Mrs. Stanton Bliss. And before I can escape he's sickin' her on real enthusiastic. Also there's Vee urgin' me to see if I can't do something to locate Wilfred. So I had to make the stab. "Got that wire with you?" I asks. Yes, Mrs. Bliss had all the documents right handy. I takes the yellow sheet over under the readin' lamp and squints at it sleuthy, partly to kill time, and partly because I couldn't think of anything else to do. And of course they all have to gather round and watch me close, as if I was about to pull some miracle. Foolish! It was a great deal worse than that. "H-m-m-m-m!" says I. "Philadelphia. I suppose there's some sort of naval trainin' station there, eh?" Mr. Robert says there is.