“You just ask Lieutenant Whitehead, who's defending me in the court-martial, if I'm stringin' yer. I been in the ring, kid, and you can bet your bottom dollar that a man's been in the ring'll tell the truth.” “Go on, Dan,” said the sergeant. “An' I never heard a word about Bill Rees since. I guess they got him into the trenches and made short work of him.” Dan Cohan paused to light a cigarette. “Well, one o' the M. P.'s follows after me and starts shootin'. An' don't you believe I ran. Gee, I was scared! But I was in luck 'cause a Frenchman had just started his camion an' I jumped in and said the gendarmes were after me. He was white, that frog was. He shot the juice into her an' went off like a bat out of hell an' there was a hell of a lot of traffic on the road because there was some damn-fool attack or other goin' on. So I got up to Paris.... An' then it'ld all have been fine if I hadn't met up with a Jane I knew. I still had five hundred francs on me, an' so we raised hell until one day we was havin' dinner in the cafe de Paris, both of us sort of jagged up, an' we didn't have enough money to pay the bill an' Janey made a run for it, but an M. P. got me an' then there was hell to pay.... Compree? They put me in the Bastille, great place.... Then they shipped me off to some damn camp or other an' gave me a gun an' made me drill for a week an' then they packed a whole gang of us, all A. W. O. L's, into a train for the front. That was nearly the end of little Daniel again. But when we was in Vitry-le-Francois, I chucked my rifle out of one window and jumped out of the other an' got on a train back to Paris an' went an' reported to headquarters how I'd smashed the car an' been in the Bastille an' all, an' they were sore as hell at the M. P.'s an' sent me out to a section an' all went fine until I got ordered back an' had to alley down to this goddam camp. Ah' now I don't know what they're goin' to do to me.” “Gee whiz!” “It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't have missed it.” Across the room someone was singing. “Let's drown 'em out,” said the top sergeant boisterously. “O Mademerselle from Armenteers, Parley voo?” “Well, I've got to get the hell out of here,” said wild Dan Cohan, after a minute. “I've got a Jane waitin' for me. I'm all fixed up,... Compree?” He swaggered out singing: “Bon soir, ma cherie, Comment alley vous? Si vous voulez Couche avec moi....” The door slammed behind him, leaving the cafe quiet. Many men had left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of the plump white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among the bottles that rose in tiers behind the bars.