He apparently had been thinking it over during our silence, for he now came out with this: “I can’t see how you could be so dumb about everything and still be on layin’ terms with any women! You just don’t know nothin’ at all about that kind o’ stuff—so I guess you must be tellin’ the truth.” He pondered for a moment, then asked, as if to clinch the matter, “Honest—ain’t you ever been with a woman in yer life?” I looked straight into his eyes and said, “No, sir, I’ve never done anything like that with a woman!” Which was, after all, entirely true. “Gawd—what’s the matter with ya?” he demanded. “Oh—I just haven’t any use for them, that’s all. They just get you into trouble, don’t they?” And that ended that rather heated discussion, for he just laughed at me, and he laughed so hard I almost became worried again for fear he’d suspect me of being myself instead of my brother.... Well, anyway, I had escaped the eyes of that doctor. If he wanted to meet me, and if I had anything to say about it, he’d have to come back to the United States and be introduced to me. Huh—I wasn’t showing all my private property to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Medical Corps of the United States Army! That night we were in the harbor at Brest and everyone was busy getting packed up ready to disembark in the morning. Also everyone, or about ninety per cent of us, were hit all of a sudden with dysentery: it was something they’d been feeding us on this ship, because almost everyone had it. It was damned inconvenient for me, I know that. Well, I was sure ’nough in the army now! CHAPTER 8 NO PLACE FOR A LADY —1— And so—This was Brest, France! Two more weeks almost disappeared into history. I was getting inured to this army life, for it was getting so that I didn’t notice how fast the days flew by. There was something doing every day and I was busy—which probably accounts for the speedy passage of time. I’d been thinking it over and decided when I got back home I’d write to the Secretary of War and suggest that they put a huge sign up in front of the entrance to this man’s war and put on the sign these words: FOR MEN ONLY. This business certainly was for men only. It was no place for a woman—at least, not a nice woman, I mean a decent girl like me. Of all the rough-necks—I never imagined there were so many in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I was meeting them here, though. I was thrown in with people that I’d never meet in the course of a lifetime at home: I mean, some of these men were specimens such as I would never have an opportunity of knowing in the United States. I guess one never knows how the other half lives nor how they think, but I was beginning to get a pretty good conception.