The Mena weekly star., 1918-05-16
CHAPTER XVIII.
staqed Under Fire.

Il lated our company was relieved from the front line and carried. We stayed in reserve billets for about two weeks when we received the welcome news that our division would go back Of the line "to rest billets." We would re- main in these billets for at least two months, this in order to be restored to our full strength by drafts of recruits from Blighty.
 Everyone was happy and contented at these tidings; all you could hear around the billets was whistIing and singing The day after the receipt of
 the order we hiked for five days, nak-
 ing an average of about twelve kilos
 per day until we arrived at the small
 town of o..
 It took us about three days to get
 settled and from then on our cushy time started. We would parade from S:45 in the morning until 12 noon. Then except for an occasional billet or brigade guard we were on our own. For the first four or five afternoons spent my time in bringing up to date my neglected correspondence.
 Tommy loves to be amused, and be- ing a Tank, they turned to me for something new i'll this line. I taught them how to pitch horseshoes, and this game made a great hit for about ten days. Then Tommy turned to Amer lea for a new diversion. l was up in the air until a happy thought came to me. Why not write a sketch and break Tommy in as an actor?
 One evening after flights out" when you are not supposed to talk, impart- ed my scheme in whispers to the sec ti0n. They eagerly accepted the idea of forming a stock company and could hardly wait until the morning for further details.
 After parade, the next afternoon was almost mobbed. Everyone in the section wanted part in the proposed sketch. When informed them that it would take at least ten days of hard work to write the plot, they were bit terly disappointed. I immediately got busy, made desk out of biscuit tins in the corner of the billet, and put up a sign "Empey & Wallace Theatrical O." About twenty of the section, upon reading this sign, immediately applied for the position of office boy. accepted the twenty applicants. and sent them on scouting parties through out the deserted French village. These parties were to search all the attics for discarded civilian clothes, and any thing that we could use in the props of our proposed company.
 About i've that night they returned covered with grime and dust, but load cd down with a miscellaneous assort- ment of everything under the suii. They must have thought that I was going to start department store, judging from the different things they brought back from their pillage.
 After eight days constant writing I completed a two-act farce comedy which called "The Diamond Palace saloon" Upon the suggestion of one Of the boys in the section sent proof of the program to a printing house in London. Then assigned the different parts and started rehearslng. David beiasco would have thrown up his hands In despair at the material which l mad to use. Just imagine trying to teach Tommy, with strong cockney accent, to impersonate Bowery tough or Southern negro.
 Adjacent to our billet was an open held. We got busy at end of It and constructed stage. We secured the lumber for the stage by demolishing an oid wooden shack in the rear Of our billet.
 The first scene was supposed to rep resent a street on the Bowery in New 1ork, while the scene of the second act was the interior of the Diamond Palace saloon, also on the Bowery. m the play took the part of Abe switch, farmer, who had come from Pumpkinville Center. Tenn, to make his first visit to New York.
 In the first scene Abe Switch meets | the proprietor of the Diamond Palace i saloon, ramshackle affair which to | The owner was a financial loss.
 The proprietors name was Tom Iwistem, his bartender being named Fillem Up.
 After meeting Abe, Tom and Fillem up persuaded him to buy the place. praising 1t to the skies and telling wondrous tales of the money taken | over the bar.
 While they are talking, an old Jew named key Cohenstein comes along, and Abe engages him for cashier. After engaging key they meet an old southern negro called Sambo, and upon the suggestion of key he Is en> gagged as porter. Then the three of them, arm in arm. leave to take pos session of this wonderful palace which ape has just paid $6,0O0 for. (Cur- tain.)
 m the second act the curtain rises on the interior of the Diamond Palace saloon. and the audience gets its first shock. The saloon looks like a pig pen, two tramps lying drunk on the neor, and tine bartender in dirty | shlrt with his sleeves rolled up, asleep | with his head on the bar.
 Enter Abe, Sambo and Ikey, and the run commences.
 One of the characters in the second act was named Broadway Kate, and nad an awful job to break in one of