On the last night in camp, at a pine table in a tiny office cut off from the lower squad room, Sergeant Gray made the above record against his own fair name, and sitting back surveyed it grimly. It was two A. M. Across from him the second mess sergeant was dealing in cans and pounds and swearing about a missing cleaver. “Did you ever think,” reflected Sergeant Gray, leaning back in his chair and tastefully drawing a girl’s face on his left thumb-nail, “that the time would come when you’d be planning bran muffins for the Old Man’s breakfast? What’s a bran muffin, anyhow?” “Horse feed.” “Ever eat one?” “No. Stop talking, won’t you?” Sergeant Gray leaned back and stretched his long arms high above his head. “I’ve got to talk,” he observed. “If I don’t I’ll go to sleep. Lay you two dollars to one I’m asleep before you are.” “Go to the devil!” said the second mess sergeant peevishly. “Never had breakfast with the Old Man, did you?” inquired Sergeant Gray, beginning on his forefinger with another girl’s face. There was no reply to his question. The second mess sergeant was completely immersed in beans. “Think the Old Man likes me,” went on Sergeant Gray meditatively. “It’s about a week now since he told me I was a disgrace to the uniform. How’d I know I was going to sneeze in his horse’s ear just as he was climbing on?” “Suffering snakes!” cried the second mess sergeant. “Go to bed! You’re delirious.” Sergeant Gray put a dimple in the girl’s cheek and surveyed it critically. “Yep. The old boy’s crazy about me,” he ruminated aloud. “Asked me the other day if I thought I’d fight the Germans as hard as I fought work.” “Probably be asking you to breakfast,” observed the second mess sergeant, beginning on a new sheet. “He’s in the habit of having noncoms to eat with him.” The subtlety of this passed over Sergeant Gray’s head. He was carefully adding a small ear to his drawing, an ear which resembled an interrogation point. But a seed had been dropped on the fertile soil of his mind. He finished, yawned again and grinned. “All right,” he said. “_C’est la guerre_, as the old boy says. I’ll lay you two dollars to one I eat breakfast with him within a month.” His imagination grew with the thought. “Wait! I’ll eat bran muffins with him at breakfast within a month. How’s that?” “It’s simple damn foolishness,” observed the second mess sergeant. “I’ll take you if you’ll go to bed and lemme alone.” “‘Lemme,’” observed Sergeant Gray, “is probably Princeton. In Harvard we——” But the second mess sergeant had picked up the inkwell and was fingering it purposefully. “All right, dear old thing,” said Sergeant Gray. And he rose, stretching his more than six feet to the uttermost. Then he made his way through the rows of beds to the sergeant’s corner, and removing his blouse, his breeches, his shoes and his puttees was ready for sleep. His last waking thought was of his wager. “A bran muffin with the Old Man!” he chuckled. “A bran muffin! A——”