I guess the joke that was best known and had the most variations in the whole army was the old one about the man in the hospital being interrogated by a kindly woman visitor who insisted upon knowing where he was wounded. I heard about a hundred variations of this story: every man you met had a new twist to it, so I guess it qualifies as the A.E.F. joke. Of all the endings, however, I think the best one is that in which the wounded man finally replies, “Madame, if you was hit where I was hit, you wouldn’t a’ been hit at all!” Maybe it seemed so funny to me because I’m a girl myself, but it’s a good story anyway and is representative of the brand of Rabelaisian humor that bloomed in this man’s army. And the wounded men were the worst ones for telling stories. I heard a verse of “Parley Vous” from one, about a Mademoiselle from Bar-le-Duc, which was positively putrid—it was so utterly vile that it took me two days to figure out just what it meant. I couldn’t even write it in shorthand! —2— There was not much humor in my personal situation at this time. The suspense was awful! Complications were setting in. One day, Chilblaines came in the office and stared at me as if he had seen a ghost. “Sergeant,” he demanded, “didn’t I just meet you on the street a moment ago?” “Me?” I exclaimed. “No, sir—I haven’t been out of the office for an hour or more.” He was plainly worried. “I would swear that I saw you getting out of a side car down the street, not more than two minutes ago,” he insisted. “Well,” I replied, with a laugh, “you must have seen my double, sir, because I’ve been right here all the time.” He wasn’t convinced, but of course he couldn’t argue the point any further. Finally he observed, “I never knew two people could look so much alike. There was a mole on his cheek, exactly the same.” “Gee—that’s funny,” I admitted. “Very odd,” he concluded. “Strange and remark- able coincidence, I should say.” And he dropped the subject, although he kept looking at me rather annoyingly all day. I hated to think of that dizzy pomme-de-terre getting any funny ideas in his head. He was bad enough as it was—God knows what he’d do if he thought I was in any way irregular. It would have been just like him to think I was some kind of a spy or something. I mean, if he thought I lied to him about being in that side car, he’d be liable to suspect almost anything. All of which didn’t make me feel very comfortable—with Ben hardly pacified yet and Jay-Jay looking for trouble, and Leon doing God only knew what to make matters worse. —3— Everybody seemed to run across that brother of mine except me. Ben saw him once and almost caught him. When he came back and told me about it, after asking if I had been out, I wondered why he wanted to catch him.