The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-10-30


and declare:
That WIS my story. and I told It to
your friend, and meant to write it myself,
and there isn't q true word in it
Therefore nave waited over several years
b1;ore narrating the extraordinary adventure
Il Hugo MacCuIloch West, Q. NJ. c., A.
\. p u Dehncs, m, and Paris, France.
Eve givsn the possible fabricator q fair OPP
psrtunity, and he has not come forward.
Even now make no claim to invention.
7 dmply set dovK the details as nearly as
shozld Be in DE order In which the fat Of
fieer told them 10 me, In his perilousiy tight
Clothes, On ne terrasss Of the Cafe Quelques
Tieurs. He said It happened to him, and
believed II.
Caveat emptsr1
THE time was Monday, ths nth Of Ne
i YER, 1918.
The place was (at frst) somewhere BE-
tween Bretigny (seine-et- Oise) and Paris
The important fact WIS that, in all the
E1iny land Of France, there lived and
hreathsd no prouder, more dignihed, NO more
restrainedly happy soldier than Hugo West
And none with q ter-ftting uniform.
He was q short man, but made up In
thickness what he lacked In height. His
chins were firmly based upon the northern
most peak Of his stomach; he weighed $50
pounds, and measured q fun yard from stem
10 gtern-
He was he leading citizen Of Defiance
md president Of its one bank. He made
speeches-perhaps hesitant and heavy, but
undeniabiy speeches-at the old home week
celebrations and the silk mills Scotch en-
p'oyeS Burns birthday dinners in the Cen
tral House. Whenever he went away from
home, he carried q sheaf Of fresh banknotes,
bearing his signature, and displayed them
to the hotel clerks as his visiting card when
registering He always told you (he told
me) that he had his shirts made to order,
and his clothes, including this uniform, were
built BY the best tailor within a mile of the
Van Buren, street corner of State street.
HEer Hugo's father had kept a road
house up In Jefferson County, somewhere
near Pigeon, but, his mothers name being
AacCulloeh (she was the great granddaugh-
tar of an ironmonger at Boddam, in Aber-
deenshirs), Major Hugo claimed descent,
with fns indifference, from Horatio, the
painter, John, the geologist, and Ramsay,
the economist He made frequent refer
ences 10 my kin, the MacCullochs, Of
Neither Ardwen, Galloway" which Is rather
far from Boddam- He had once heard Harry
LGuder At the Haymarket, in Chicago. al
ways spoke of Burns by the abbreviation
Of that poets Christian name. and held
himself 10 Be q thorough Scot
Major Hugo recalled the send-off the old
burg had given him under the energetic
direction Of Genevieve, who was Mrs. Hugo
There had been a brass band parade of thu
Spanish War Veterans, members of Council
and civic bodies. All the hundred and two
members of the Defiance Chapter of the Red
Gross Excepting the seventy three whom
fts president, Genevieve, had quarreled with)
were there IN that chic modification of the
Red Cross uniform which Genevieye had
herself designed A Sam Browne belt was
presented by the Ladies Auxiliary of the
Defiance Hospital, Genevieve West, chair
man, and the Boys Loyalty League.
through it's chief executive, Mrs. Major
Hugo West, gave him the insignia of heu
tenant colonel, against his certain promo
ton Hugo's voice sincerely faltered when,
In his valedictory address, he touched gently
upon the possibility of some day Lying stark
- the field Of glory"
Well. here he was in France, the battle
Il Paris before him, his belt creaking across
his stomach, the lieutenant colonel leaves
h his musette, and orders in his pocket to
report to the Provost Marshal's Office. 10
8ae Ste. Anne.
L. III
wanted: to go abroad" For genealogical
reasons, II not indeed military, he would
have preferred Scotland to France; but he
might manage Scotland when he managed
leave. He was abroad" anyhow.
Now nobody ought ever to 90 abroad for
the first time Major Hugo's experience
proves Il
e0TlHE French are . gay people,
L An the school Biographies say 20, but
Major Hugo, though he had frequently
uttered the phrase in Defiance, never real
lied what It meant until, arrived in Paris,
be stepped out Of the shadowy station into
the thundaring street. For an instant the
launching thought possessed him that the
Germans were at the gates; then he saw
that what he saw was not terror, but joy:
he remembered that the French are q gay
people.
From DE jostied doorvays to the railway
chat crowned the river bank forming the
ether sids Of the thoroughfare there was
sethins but gay people; people up and down
q far - the eye could strain, people in a
BARK across the water, packed in q huge
square below the park-dancing people,
singing people, shouting people = hatless,
tinhorn blowing, arm waving. Cannon
doomed, Enthusiastically allegro.
Major Hugo had thought he would call q
taxi and show the chauffeur that written