Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-02-02
BY SEWELL FORD


ooh, only expert caaurfiEg ana all.
round repairing" says I. 'Hel keep
your ears tuned up so you'n forget
what repair bills look like"
Really" says she. "Hcw fortunate
Tor both OF us" I'd
Yes. it looked that way For when
Snipe Gallagher appears in his fight
IN clothes he don't seem more'n half as
tough as he does in his South Brook
Ign civilians. Course, you wouldn't.
mistake him for any Y. NJ. G. A. sec
rotary Or II movin picture soldier, ana
there's no way of disguisin' such
nose as his unless he wore gas mask
constant. But you'd guess at a glance
he'd used that uniform at the front.
Mrs, Boomcr-Day sGueals delighted
when [ tows him in, and the next thing
! know Snipe has been hired at ninety
IL month and found, and is being asked
to tell all about what he did in the
great war.
Me- says Snipe ,"Oh. mostly laid
IN the mud under some motor truck
that had been put out Of commission
How charmingly modest" says
Mrs. Boomer-Day, Put you. must have
taken part in those dashing advances
when the Hun invader was swept back
out of dear France"
II dunno" says Snipe. Mainly I was
under trucks"
I'm what great battle, though" in~
sists Mrs. Boomer-Day was it that
YOU were shell-shocked? Chateau
Thicrry, St. Mihiel. Belleau Wood?"
IT'S by me- says Snipe. 1T was
somewhere in the mud"
Mrs. Boomer Day does that baby
pout Of hers and turns to me. sort OF
disappointed. SO l takes a hand.
Maybe you can remember whore it
was you got gassed?" says 1.
Snipe messages his left ear refiec-
tive and then n look of almost human
Intelligence 1licfers into them pop
eyes. "Yea-uh, says he, That was
4 muddy spot, too"
"Ah. come, Gallagher" says I:
didn't YOU run across anything else
in little old France but mud?"
"Not.much." says Snipe. 1T was the
ntuddest war I was ever in"
And us l leads him off to show him
where his quarters are, out in a dou-
blc-breasted brick garage that looks
like Il young city hail. / speaks a few
plain words in his ear. You're n bird
YOU are, Snipe." says I. Come near
uueerin' yourself first rattle out of the
hp, tor ha Il
taps you for war "reminiscences, see
that you turn on some regular horrors
for her. and for The love Of Mike for
get the mud"
HUH" says Snipe. "That was the
kind of mud YOU don't forget easy
Still, Mrs. Boomer Day is q persist.
emit old girl, and I was bankin' on her
pumpin' some thrillin' tales out of
Snipe sooner or later The reports
get through Sadie, though, don't tell
of any progress along that line.
she thinks he must be rather stu
pid." says~Sadie. He doesn't seem to
know where he was or what he did
during all those months he was at the
front And as for learning anything
new--why, he can't even learn to stem
ell designs on furniture. He has just
spoiled a whole breakfast room set
trying"
Then she'd better be satisfied to
keep him as chauffeur" | suggests.
But he's such Il wierd- looking crea-
ture in livery" says Sadie. "Have you
seen him wearing a cap?"
L hadn't / gathered, though. that
Snipe's nose wasn't built to go with
n low viZor, and that the Boomer Days.
after one glimpse of him ON the trout
seat OF the limousine, had given him II
permanent detail to the housckceper's
market roadster. They're mighty fin
icky about the looks of things; 'spc-
cially Mrs. Boomer-Day. who's IL
chronic social climber. Course, She
don't fail to advertise how she's help
in a shattered hero back to health and
fortune, but she amt strong for en-
hibitin' him in public. And then. right
in the midst of the social season. she
turns her big trek.
what do you think Shortly" Sadie
announces one night ut dinner. 'rhe
Boomer-pays are going to entertain a
real English lord"
l.,'iI