CHAPTER XV

A NIGHT OF JOLLITY

“We ought to be able to pull off a pretty good time for the fellows to-night,” Blake remarked thoughtfully, as he and Joe, with Charlie and C. C. bringing up the rear, sauntered slowly along the deserted country road. “It’s a good idea, too, to give the fellows something to laugh at and get them as far away from the trenches as we can--for one night at least. Don’t you think so?”

“Er--what did you say?” stuttered Joe, disengaging himself with difficulty from his somewhat gloomy thoughts and looking dazedly at his friend.

“Say, what’s the matter with you these days?” Blake demanded indignantly. “I think you must be in love or something.”

“Or something is right,” chuckled Joe. “No, old man, French girls don’t hold a candle to the girls in the good old U. S. A., to my way of thinking. Better guess again. But what were you saying?” he added, suddenly remembering that Blake had been saying something about something or other.

“I was just remarking,” Blake replied stiffly, “that Mr. Hadley had the right idea when he suggested comedy stuff instead of high tragedy for to-night.”

“Oh, for the picture show we’re going to give in the Y,” said Joe, waxing intelligent and interested at the same time. “Well, of course, he’s right. The boys have enough bloody stuff without having it rubbed into their amusements.”

“We are going to give them one high-class, five-reel picture though,” continued Blake, waxing warm in his enthusiasm, “with the classiest little cast going----”

“My, don’t we hate ourselves,” Joe put in with a chuckle. “It ought to make quite an effect, though,” he added, “to have the actors and actresses in the piece come out to the footlights in person and make their little speeches. It will be some surprise to find them on this side of the water.”

“Quite spectacular,” agreed Blake. “It will all be fine if only C. C. can be persuaded to postpone his famous imitation of the dying codfish----”

At this moment C. C. himself hailed them from the rear and they waited for him and Macaroni to come up.

“Say, what do you think this is?” C. C. was complaining querulously. “I started out for a gentle little stroll among the lovely woodland creatures----”

“Gee, does he mean us?” chuckled Charlie, but beyond one withering glance, C. C. declined to notice the interruption.

“And instead of a mile or so, we wander miles----”

“You’re the only one who’s wandering, C. C.,” put in Joe, with a grin. “And your feet aren’t doing it either.”

“Never mind, C. C.,” Blake laughed, putting a soothing hand on the irate comedian’s arm. “Joe doesn’t mean anything by it--the heat always does that to him. We were just wondering,” he continued, with apparent sincerity and deep guile, “what kind of a speech you were going to hand the boys to-night.”

“Yes,” added Joe. “Is the dying codfish dead, C. C., or is he to be revivified for the occasion?”

“Gee, if he’s dead somebody ought to get busy and bury him,” murmured Macaroni, at which they all grinned--except C. C.

“I regret to see,” the latter declaimed pityingly, “that you are willing to waste time and breath on what you must know to be a purely imaginary object. The only time I ever saw an animal of that kind,” he continued reminiscently, “was on a fishing trip with my aged and now defunct Uncle Abner. I suppose you might have called him a dying codfish----”

“Who, your Uncle Abner?” queried Joe, with disarming innocence.

“No, the fish,” C. C. explained patiently.

“Tell us about it,” said Joe and Blake together, their faces unnaturally grave.

“Well, it was on a beautiful summer day,” C. C. began thoughtfully, his eyes on the far horizon, “when my Uncle Abner suggested that I accompany him upon a fishing trip.”

“Methinks I heard something of the sort before,” murmured Macaroni, but both Joe and Blake silenced him with a look.

“I must have been about ten years old at the time,” the narrator continued thoughtfully, “and all the angling I had ever done had been by the somewhat crude method of string and bent pin.”

“Did you ever catch anything with it?” queried Charlie with real interest.

“Sometimes,” C. C. answered with a twinkle, yes, a real twinkle. “But it never did me much good because I had a little sister with a very tender heart who cried so hard whenever I happened to catch anything that I had to throw it back to keep peace in the family.”

“Gee, I’d have thrown her in after it,” murmured Charlie indignantly, but again a glance from the others silenced him.

“Well, to continue,” went on C. C., looking as though he were really enjoying himself. “Uncle Abner, being an experienced fisherman, sniffed scornfully at my prehistoric tackle and offered as a great favor to lend me one of his lightest poles. Of course, I was flattered and had visions of myself telling the story of my wonderful catch----”

“Which wasn’t caught,” again murmured Mac.

“To the admiring and open-mouthed youngsters,” continued C. C. imperturbably, “who had shared my lowly fishing expeditions with the string and bent pin. Then, too, my tender-hearted little sister had been ordered to stay at home, much to my secret joy, and I knew that by the time I reached home with my marvelous catch the fish would be no longer in the land of the living, which would form a valuable argument against restoring them to their native element, as no good could result therefrom.”

“Really,” again put in Macaroni, and this time the others chuckled with him.

“Well,” continued C. C., too much interested in his story to notice the interruption, “Uncle Abner explained to me the intricate mechanism of the rod and tackle--at least, so it seemed to me then--stationed me securely upon a rock that jutted out over the water and with a few last instructions, left me to my fate.”

“Yes, yes, go on,” they cried in chorus.

“Where does the dying codfish come in?” Joe added.

“I was coming to that,” Mr. Piper protested. “Give me time.”

“Cæsar had time and he conquered,” murmured Macaroni again.

“Well,” C. C. continued, “the afternoon wore on and nothing happened. Uncle Abner was one of those scientific fishermen who act as though you’d committed a crime if you wiggle your big toe. And as the sun went down, my hopes of a big catch went down with it, and, not seeing anything else to do, I went to sleep.”

“Enter the codfish,” cried Joe dramatically.

“Say,” protested C. C., this time indignant, “who’s telling this story anyway? If you think you can do it better----”

“No, no, C. C., I was only fooling,” Joe hastened to apologize. “You were saying you had just yielded to the blandishments of Morpheus, or words to that effect----”

“I was saying,” Mr. Piper corrected frigidly, “that I had just fallen asleep----”

“Oh, pardon me,” from Joe.

“When I got a nibble,” said C. C. sternly.

“Well, you don’t need to look at me,” Mac protested. “I didn’t do it.”

“What happened then, C. C.?” asked Blake hastily. “You say you felt a nibble----”

“And such a nibble,” agreed C. C., warming to his story again. “Say, you may not believe me, boys, but it jerked me half off that rock.”

“Gee, what was it, a whale?” cried Joe, eyeing the comedian’s rather bulky frame unbelievingly.

“You forget,” said C. C. acidly--for C. C. loved being interrupted the way an irate bull loves a red flag--“that at the time of my story I was only ten years old and not as--er--shall we say--well-padded, as I am now. And the fish was not a whale.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” agreed Macaroni happily. “Don’t be stupid, Joe. Don’t you see? It was the dying codfish----”

“There you go, forestalling me again,” protested C. C. “A fellow has about as much chance of telling something to you fellows----”

“Yes, yes, go on,” again urged Blake. “You woke up to find yourself being jerked forcibly from your rocky perch----”

“It wasn’t a perch, it was a codfish,” Macaroni insisted, while they looked for something to throw at him.

“Go ahead, C. C.,” Joe entreated placatingly. “Did you succeed in landing this er--animal--or did it land you?”

“Neither,” C. C. replied ruefully. “Uncle Abner grabbed the line and succeeded in bringing the fish to shore. It was a perch, not a codfish, and if it was dying it camouflaged the fact pretty well and, say, it was a beauty. But just as Uncle Abner gave a last turn to the reel I’ll be darned if the fish didn’t break away, hook and all, and slide down into the water again.”

“Gee, that was tough luck,” murmured Mac sympathetically. “So the dying codfish--or perch--still lived on.”

“He refused to shuffle off the mortal coil,” chanted Blake.

“But shuffled off the hook instead,” finished Joe, while even C. C. allowed himself a feeble grin.

“But say,” remarked Blake suddenly, bringing them with a start to a realization of the present. “That sun says it waxeth late and we’ll have to do some hustling if we expect to pull off that show to-night.”

Several hours later, the Y. M. C. A. tent was crowded with uniformed figures, boys with eager faces, glad to get away from the horror and nightmare of war, determined to enjoy this hour of relaxation to the utmost.

Mr. Hadley had chosen the films himself, carefully cutting out everything suggestive of war and making fun the keynote of the evening.

The boys shouted with glee at the clever comedy and applauded the

## acting of pretty Miss Lee and Miss Shay in their stirring, five-reel

drama, with boyish enthusiasm.

“Say, don’t those girls make you think of home?” asked one doughboy of another, his eyes shining with something deeper than admiration. “Birdie Lee reminds me of a little girl, say Frank--I wish you could see that little girl. She’s----” his voice broke and the other boy stretched a hand across his shoulders.

“I know, old man,” he said, in a husky whisper. “I’ve got one like that, too. And that mother--gosh, man, I can’t get over feeling that I’ve seen my mother--there on the screen----”

And then before the astonished and delighted eyes of those young soldiers the actual actors in the play appeared--the girls who had reminded them of their sweethearts, the mother who had seemed their mother----

There was an incredulous murmur that swelled into a roar of delight, and the boys cheered and clapped and whistled till the place was a very pandemonium of sound.

It was a long, long time before enough order had been restored to make speeches possible, and then applause often drowned the voices of the speaker while he or she waited, smiling, but with a queer little tightening of the throat until comparative quiet reigned again.

Those boys--their bravery, their gallantry, their enthusiasm!

At last it was over and the two soldier boys who had spoken before sauntered out with the rest, arm in arm.

“Going to turn in, Frank?” asked one.

“Soon, I guess,” the other answered. “But I’m going to write--first. Say, old man--that little woman on the screen with the white hair and the--the--homey look--I suppose I’m crazy, but I can’t get over the idea that I’ve seen--my mother----”

##