In due course the gentleman from Fourteenth Street, Lebanon, Illinois, set foot upon the soil of France—to his own profound relief. His name was Joseph Williams. His calling, up to date, had been that of elevator attendant in the leading—in fact, the only—hotel in his native town. He had never been from home in his life, and when the long arm of the Selective Draft reached out from Washington, D.C., and pounced upon Joseph in Lebanon and dropped him into the maelstrom of Camp Dodge, it launched him upon a series of experiences so novel and so surprising that his eyes had never quite regained their sockets, nor had his mouth been completely closed, since. American negroes vary a good deal in tint, but there were no half-measures about Joseph. He was coal-black; and as his teeth and the whites of his eyes were china-white, he furnished a most effective colour-scheme. He was, moreover, a youth of cheerful countenance, and performed the most ordinary military duties with an air of rapturous enjoyment. But the voyage across had been a severe trial. Joseph had never seen the ocean before, and his introduction to that element had not been auspicious. For fifteen long days the convoy had tumbled and lurched through the Atlantic wastes. The weather had been contrary; fogs numerous. The lame ducks of the party had been more than usually dilatory. Joseph and his brethren—possibly with some long-dormant ancestral chord of recollection astir within them—had been first scared, then demoralized, and finally had given up hope. After the first week they abandoned all expectation of ever seeing land again. Late one night the officer on duty, going his rounds amid the Chinese opium-den of close-packed bunks in the ship’s hold, overheard Joseph’s voice, uplifted above the creaking of timbers and the snores of his associates, imploring Providence for the sight of “jus’ one li’l’ lone pine-tree—no mo’ dan dat!”—as a divine guarantee that the deep waters of the Atlantic had not entirely submerged the habitable globe. But now, Joseph had arrived. He was “right there.” The sun shone warmly upon him, and the good brown earth lay firm beneath his large feet—the soil of France, which he had come to save. His smile expanded: his soul burgeoned. He would explore this town, and fraternize with the inhabitants. Leave obtained, he set forth. He observed with approval, as a member of a family which had derived its income for generations from the taking-in of other people’s washing, the elaborately starched and frilled caps of the Normandy fisherwomen. He returned with interest the shy smiles of little French girls in wooden sabots. When a bullet-headed little French boy in a long black pinafore stood to attention upon his approach and exclaimed, “_Américain, Salu-u-u-ut!_” Joseph Williams beamed from ear to ear.