"We've got a lot to learn," sighed Roger. "All I can see to do is to get busy and learn it. I've been trying to look as much like a first-class private as I could since I drew my uniform. Jimmy has us all beaten when it comes to that, though. His uniform blouse looks as though it grew on him." Jimmy appeared radiantly pleased at Bob's candid praise. Unconsciously he drew himself up with a proud little air that was vastly becoming to him. "Oh, I'm not so much," he demurred. "Don't let it go to your head and swell it, Blazes," teased Bob. "Look at me and think what you might have been. To-night you see before you a simple, hopeful rookie. To-morrow at drill you'll see a sore and hopeless dub. I expect to get mine; but not forever. Live and learn. If you can't learn you've got a right to live, anyhow. A few gentle reminders from a drill sergeant that you're a dummy won't put you in the family vault. A little mild abuse'll seem like home to me. I'll think I'm back on the _Chronicle_ listening to the city editor. It takes a newspaper man to read the riot act to a cub reporter. Nothing left out and several clauses added." Bob's untroubled attitude toward what lay in wait for him on the morrow had a cheering effect on Jimmy and Roger. Ignace, however, sat humped up on his cot a veritable statue of melancholy. Decidedly round-shouldered, his stocky figure showed at a glaring disadvantage in the trim olive-drab Army-blouse. Jimmy's glance coming to rest on the dejected one, he counseled warningly: "You'd better practice holding back your shoulders, Iggy. They need it." Ignace obediently straightened up. "Too much mill," he explained. "All time so." He illustrated by bending far forward. "Mebbe better soon. Huh?" "You'll have to keep on the job all the while, then," was Jimmy's blunt assertion. "So will I." Ignace sighed, then braced himself upon the edge of his cot to a position of ramrod stiffness that was laughable, yet somehow pathetic. Occupied with the ordeal, he took small part in the low-toned talk that continued among his Brothers, but sat blinking at them, now and then slumping briefly and recovering himself with a jerk. Shortly before the 9:45 call to quarters sounded, he dropped over on his cot and went fast asleep. Sound of the bugle brought him to his feet with a wild leap and a snort that nearly convulsed his comrades, and brought the eyes of a dozen or more of rookies to bear upon him. Among them was a tall, freckle-faced, pale-eyed youth with a sneering mouth, who bunked directly across the aisle from the four Khaki Boys.