“Same here,” said Major Powers. “My first consignment of drafted men was a mixture of mountaineers from Tennessee—moonshiners, most of them—and East-Side Jews from New York. (I wonder who the blue-eyed boy at Washington was who mixed ’em!) The moonshiners looked the hardest lot of cases you ever set eyes on: they hated discipline worse than poison; and an officer was about as popular with them as a skunk at a picnic. But they were as easy as pie: they were scared to death half the time, by—what do you think?” “The water-wagon?” suggested a voice. “No—of getting lost! They could have found their way blindfold over their own hills back home; but they had never lived on a street before, and those huge camps had them paralyzed. They said the huts were all exactly alike—which was true enough—and not one of them would stray fifty yards from his own for fear he would not find it again. Curious, isn’t it?” “Yes. Almost exactly what happened with our Scottish Highlanders,” said Norton. “But they took quite kindly to city life in the end. Regular clubmen, in fact. What about your East-Siders?” “They were a more difficult proposition,” said Powers. “In the first place, they didn’t want to fight at all, whereas the moonshiners did. In fact, the moonshiners didn’t care whom they fought, so long as they fought somebody. They were like the Irishman who asked: ‘Is this a private fight, or can anybody join in?’ But the East-Siders were different. Their discipline was right enough: in fact, the average East-Side rookie usually acted towards an officer as if he wanted to sell _him_ something. But they were city birds, born and bred. They were accustomed to behave well when a cop was in sight; but once around the corner you could not have trusted them with their own salary. They didn’t like country life, and they didn’t like the dark. They were never really happy away from a street with illuminated signs on it—and there aren’t many of those in Texas. If you put one of the bunch on sentry duty by himself in a lonely place, like as not he’d get so scared he’d go skating around the outskirts of the camp looking for cover. I once rounded up four of my sentries from different posts, all together in one pool-room. But discipline has them nicely fixed now. By the way, you heard the story of the Jew doughboy whose friends recommended him to take a Commission?” “No. Tell me!” commanded Miss Lane. “He refused, on the ground that it would be too difficult to collect. He said he might not be able to keep tally of all the Germans he killed: besides, his General might not believe him. Anyway, he preferred a straight salary! Tell us some more of your experiences, Captain.”