Stories from the Trenches: Humorous and Lively Doings of Our 'Boys Over There'

WEIGHTY MEASURES INVOLVING UNCLE SAM’S NAVY

THIS is the story of a conspiracy against Uncle Sam – a patriotic plot to be sure, for it is concerned with the son of a Spanish War veteran who was rejected for service in Uncle Sam’s Navy because he was seven pounds shy of weight for height, the said son’s up-and-down dimension being full six feet. It is a story of superfeeding conducted while the young man was skillfully kept a prisoner – albeit a willing one, but just to guard against his “jumping his feed” – by placing his nether garments carefully under lock and key. The New York Sun tells the tale and its happy outcome. It happened in this way:

Young Walter Francis everlastingly did want to get into the Navy and stop this U-boat nonsense once and for all. Wherefore last Saturday bright and early Potential Admiral Francis took his bearings from the compass he wears on his watch chain, yelled, “Ship ahoy!” to the skipper of a passing Brooklyn trolley car, boarded a starboard seat well aft in the car, and then set sail over the waves of Brooklyn asphalt toward the recruiting plant of the Second Naval Battalion of Brooklyn at the foot of Fifty-second street, Bay Ridge.

“Step on,” directed the examining surgeon to young Mr. Francis, indicating the scales in his office. “Step off. Now step out – you’re seven pounds shy for a six-footer.”

Half an hour later Walter Francis, dejected and forlorn, appeared before his father.

“’Smatter, son?” inquired the Spanish War vet.

“’Smatter, pop! There’s seven pounds the matter! Uncle Sam can do without me.”

Mrs. Francis came into the room and heard the depressing news of her short-weight son, and straightway conspiracy stalked silently upon the scene. Says the writer in the Sun:

A moment later a significant look passed between father and mother above and back of the bowed head of their son. Mr. and Mrs. Francis withdrew to the kitchen for a council of war. Then Spanish-American War Veteran Joe Francis walked into the front room again and stood before his underweight offspring.

“Take off our pants, Walter,” said Francis, senior, “And give me your – don’t sit there staring at me; get busy – give me your shoes. Ma, catch the boy’s pants when I throw ’em out to you. Lock his pants and shoes up with all his other pants and then start in cooking. Cook up everything you got in the house. And when you get a chance run down to Gilligan’s and tell him to send up five pounds of dried apples.”

“I’m on, pop!” suddenly shouted Embryo Admiral Walter Francis, springing to his feet alive once more. “You’re going to feed me up for a couple of weeks so I’ll make the weight. Gosh, you’re there with the bean, pop – I never woulda thought of the scheme.”

“For a couple of weeks!” cried Parent Francis scornfully. “For a couple of days, you mean, son. Come on into the dining-room and start right in to – . No, stay right where you are. Don’t move from now on unless you have to or you might lose another ounce. You just sit right there all day. Ma will do the cooking and I’ll be the waiter. And if you’re not up to weight inside of three days then I’m a German spy. And don’t weaken. Just keep in mind that even if you do it won’t get you anything. For I’m going to keep the key to all your pants right in my pocket till you cripple the weighing scales. So all you’re going to do from now on is stick around and eat.”

Already Mrs. Francis had passed into the room a nightshirt and a three-quart pitcher brimming with sparkling Croton. Without a pause Parent Francis had filled a tumbler and passed it on to his offspring, who eagerly drained the glass. Tumbler after tumbler of water was tumbled into the digestive system of the underweight linotyper, while steadily from the kitchen came the happy sizzling of four pork chops and fast-frying potatoes with trimmings.

Twenty-one glasses of water disappeared into young Walter Francis before Saturday’s sun had set, together with all the pork chops, the fried potatoes, thick slices of buttered bread, and some other snacks.

The Sunday treatment included fourteen glasses of water and a general packing-in of fattening fodder, until dinner-time arrived, when son Walter was fed up on two pounds of steak smothered in boiled potatoes with trimmings of stewed corn and mashed turnips, all resting on a solid foundation of well-buttered bread and roofed with a generous slab of apple pie. And then:

One and one-quarter pounds of mutton-chops merely formed the architectural approaches to the breakfast Walter Francis found staring him in the face when he arose heavily on Monday morning. Ham and eggs in groups – salty ham which hadn’t been parboiled, thus retaining its thirst-arousing properties – was the centerpiece around which the luncheon Mrs. Francis had prepared that day for her son was draped. A dinner that ran all the way from soup to nuts (the time was growing short if Parent Francis was to make good on his promises) followed on Monday night, the big noise of the Monday dinner being a sirloin steak.

And just before Son Francis decided to call it a day and waddle to bed Spanish-American War Veteran Francis had a final happy thought. Father fed son a plentiful supply of dried apples and then unleashed a growler and went down to the corner and got a quart of collarless beer. Walter Francis flooded the dried apples with the entire quart of beer, cried “Woof! I’m a hippopotamus!” and collapsed into bed.

Tuesday morning last Father and Mother Francis personally helped their son toward the street-door after he had breakfasted on five pork-chops, two cups of coffee and four rolls. Once more he was about to set sail for the Second Naval Battalion recruiting office at the foot of Fifty-second Street, where three days earlier he had been turned down as hopelessly shy on tonnage. Parent Francis helped his bouncing boy aboard the trolley-car, shouting a last word of caution to walk, not run, to the nearest entrance to the recruiting station.

And just before young Mr. Francis applied again for the job of ridding the seas of U-boats (it should be mentioned incidentally that about half an hour earlier his father had unlocked a pair of pants and other gent’s furnishings for the trip) the potential admiral saw the burnished sign on a corner saloon. He got off the car carefully, drank seven glasses of water in the saloon and then eased his way into the presence of the surgeon who had given him the gate on Saturday.

“I told you before you were many pounds underweight, young man,” said the surgeon. “It’s utterly useless for you to come around here when – ”

“But that was away last week, Doc,” wheezed young Mr. Francis. “Give me another try at your scales.”

“My Gordon!” cried the surgeon, glancing at the scales and uttering his favorite cuss-word. “Saturday you were seven pounds under weight and to-day you’re a pound overweight! How’d yuh ever do it?”

“I’ve heard of lads getting their teeth pulled to get out of serving Uncle Sam, but you’re the first guy I ever heard of who made a fool of his stummick to get into the Navy,” grinned Bos’n Carroll as Walter Francis bared his brawny arm for the vaccine. “Welcome to our ocean, Kid!”

NEVER TALK BACK

“ – and then the Germans charged, and the captain shouted, ‘Shoot at will,’ and I shouted, ‘Which one is he?’ And then they took away my gun, and now I can’t play any more.”

GOING HOME

Visitor – “And what did you do when the shell struck you?”

Bored Tommy – “Sent mother a post-card to have my bed aired.”

ENLISTED MEN TELL WHY THEY JOINED THE ARMY

OUR first forces in France were volunteers, part of the old regular Army, though many of the enlistments were recent. The motives leading men to join such an army are varied and in many cases humorous or pathetic. A Y. M. C. A. secretary in France, who had won the confidence of the men with whom he was associated, wondered why each man had come. So he arranged that they should hand in cards telling why they had enlisted. Mr. Arthur Gleason presents some of the answers in the New York Tribune as “the first real word from the soldier himself of why he has offered himself.” These replies came from two battalions of an infantry regiment, which, for military reasons can not be identified. Mr. Gleason puts them in several groups. One is the sturdily patriotic. Thus, one soldier says:

“My reason in 1907 was that I liked the service and wanted to try for something new and bright for my country.”

Others say: “Because my country needs me”; “to catch Villa”; “I wanted to get the Kaiser’s goat”; “for the benefit of the American Army”; “so patriotic and didn’t know what it was”; “Mexican trouble, 1917”; “I felt like my country needed me, and I wanted to do something for it, and that was the only way I was able to do anything for my dear country, the good old U. S. A.”; “I never did anything worth while on the outside, so I dedicated myself to my country that I might be of some use to some one”; “a couple of Germans”; “to serve God and my country.”

Another class of answers deal with what is in the blood of youth – the desire to taste adventure, to see the world, and see France. Here are a few in this group:

“To do my duty and see the world”; “to see the world, ha! ha!”; “because I thought I would like that kind of a life, and didn’t know what kind of a life I would have to lead in this hole”; “got tired of staying at home”; “I was seeking adventure and change of environments”; “to kill time and fight”; “to see France”; “I was discouraged with the civilian life and wanted to get some excitement”; “to have a chance to ride on the train; I never had ridden”; “they said I was not game and I was, and because I wished to”; “because I wouldn’t stay in one place any length of time, I thought if I joined the Army for three or seven years I would be ready to settle down. I think that is as good a thing as any boy could do”; “to see the world”; “I had tried everything else, so I thought I would try the Army.”

Another group of answers deal with the individual human problem of hunger and loneliness. These that follow illustrate this:

“To fight, and for what money was in it”; “three good square meals and a bath”; “because I was disgusted with myself and thought it would make a man out of me”; “I was too lazy to do anything else”; “I was stewed”; “to get some clothes, a place to sleep and something to eat”; “because I was hungry”; “because I was nuts with the dobey heat” (dobey is a Mexican slang word brought up by the boys from the border); “because I had to keep from starving;” “in view of the fact that I was so delicate and a physical wreck I joined the Army, hoping to get lots of fresh air and exercise, which I have sure gotton, and am ready to go home at any time”; “I was in jail and they came and got me. Hard luck!”; “because I did not have no home”; “I got hungry”; “pork and beans were high at the time”; “three square meals a day and a flop.”

The voice of State rights speaks in the replies of two men from the South:

“To represent the State of Kentucky.”

“In answer to a call from my State, Mississippi, and to see something of the world, and I have seen some of the world, too.”

Then, too, there are a number that refuse to be classified; each has its own note of suffering or audacity of humor:

“To catch the Kaiser”; “because the girls like a soldier”; “because my girl turned her back on me, that’s all”; “I thought I was striking something soft, but …”; “the dear ones at home”; “I was crazy”; “two reasons: because girls like soldiers and I saw a sign ‘500,000 men wanted to police up France’”; “for my health and anything else that is in it” (a consumptive soldier); “to show that my blood was made of the American’s blood”; “to learn self-control”; “it was a mistake; I didn’t know any better”; “for my adopted country”; “I got drunk on Saturday, the Fourth of July, 1913, and I left home on the freight-train and joined the Army, and woke up the next morning getting two sheets in the wind, and I haven’t got drunk since that; made a man out of me”; “to keep from working, but I got balled”; “I have not seen anything yet but rain”; “because I didn’t know what I was doing”; “to kill a couple of Germans for the wrong done Poland”; “to keep from wearing my knuckles out on the neighbors’ back doors”; “adventure and experience; also, to do my little bit for my country, the good old U. S. A., and the Stars and Stripes, the flag of freedom”; “to fight for my country and the flag, for the U. S. is a free land, and we will get the Kaiser, damn him. Oh, the U. S. A.!” (Picture of a flag.)

One man makes out a complete category of his reasons: (a) “To see excitement”; (b) “to help win this war and end the Kaiser’s idea of world ruler”; (c) “help free the German people from Kaiserism.”

And, finally, there is one that needs no comment, and with this we will end:

“Because mother was dead and I had no home.”

THE NATIONAL GAME

Teacher – “What lessons do we learn from the attack on the Dardanelles?”

Prize Scholar – “That a strait beats three kings, dad says.”

TOMMY ATKINS, RAIN-SOAKED AND WAR-WORN STILL GRINS

FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE, one of the Vigilantes, differs with Sherman in declaring that war is mud. He had just returned from what he describes as one of the periodical joy-rides which the British Foreign Office and the General Staff organize from time to time to give civilians an opportunity to visit the front. Mr. Wile’s visits occurred when the war-god was evidently taking a much-needed rest, for he says that on two occasions when he intruded upon Armageddon he saw more rain than blood spilled. But he found Tommy Atkins – mud-caked and rain-soaked – still wearing the grin that won’t come off. Mr. Wile thus writes of his last visit:

I am in to-night from a day in the trenches. It rained all the time. The trenches were gluey and sticky, and the “duck-boards” along which we traveled were afloat a good share of the day. But the only people who used really strong language about having to eat, sleep, and navigate in such soggy territory was our party of civilian tenderfoots. The cave-dwellers in khaki whom we encountered in endless numbers were as happy as school-children on a picnic. Clay-spattered from head to foot, their clothes often wringing wet, they looked up from whatever happened to be their tasks and grinned as we passed.

Our chief and always dominating impression was of their grins and smiles. I am firmly convinced that soldiers who can laugh in such weather can not be overcome by anything, not even the Prussian military machine. Perhaps Tommy smiled more broadly than usual to-day at our expense, for during our hike from a certain quarry to a certain front line “Fritz” sent over whiz-bangs which caused us arm-chair warriors from home to duck and dodge in the most un-Napoleonic fashion, even though our gyrations were in obedience to nature’s first law – self-preservation.

When you’re in a trench and a shell screeches through the heavens – you always hear it and never see it – the temptation to side-step is the last word in irresistibility. You have been provided with a steel helmet before starting out on the expedition in view of the possibility that a stray piece of German shrapnel may come your way. These helmets have saved many a gallant Tommy from sudden death.

After you’ve heard a whiz-bang and find that you are still intact, you ask: “Was that a Boche or one of ours?” You experience an indefinable sense of relief when you are told that it was “one of ours,” but you keep on ducking in the same old way whenever the air is rent.

Yes, it is the invincible grin of Tommy Atkins in abominable atmospheric surroundings and in the omnipresent shadow of death that has photographed itself most indelibly on my memory to-day. But next to that I am struck by his amazing good health as mirrored by his ruddy cheeks and bright eyes. Certainly the strapping young fellows whom I have seen are a vastly finer, sturdier lot, physically viewed, than any set of men now running around the streets of London in citizens’ clothes. It is manifestly “the life,” this endless sojourn of theirs on the edge of No Man’s Land, with the enemy a rifle-shot away.

You ask their officers what explains this hygienic phenomenon – this ability to keep at the top note of “fitness” amid privations almost unimaginable. You will be told that it is the remorselessly “regular life” the men lead for one thing, and the liberal supply of fresh air, for another. Then it is the simple food they eat and the never-ending exercise they get for their legs and arms and muscles. They sleep when and where they can, in their clothes for weeks on end, never saying “How-do-you-do?” to a bath-tub sometimes for many days, though they shave each morning with religious punctuality, even in the midst of a mighty “push.” Cleanliness of physiognomy is as much a passion with Mr. Atkins as his daily ablutions are to a pious Turk. You will go far before you will find a cleaner-faced aggregation of young men than the British Army in the field.

Should you have any doubt as to what the physical appearance of the men tells you, and ask an officer how Tommy is standing the strain of the war, he declares enthusiastically, “The men are simply splendid!” And you hear from the men that the officers are “top-hole.” But all that you will learn from the officers on that subject is:

Regulation No. 1, when a man gets a commission in the British Army, is: “Men first, officers next.” An officer’s business, in other words, is to see that his men are well looked after. If there is any time left when he has done that, he may look after himself. But Tommy comes first. That is why the relations between superior and subordinate in the mighty Citizens’ Army of Britain are perfect in the highest degree. Duke’s son and cook’s son are real pals. Class distinctions are non-existent in the England that is the trenched fields of France and Flanders.

“Just so we keep on livin’ – that’s all we ask,” was the sententious observations of a mud-clotted Yorkshireman who backed against the slimy wall of a trench to let us pass. We had asked him the stereotyped question – “Well, Tommy, how goes it?” His answer was unmistakably typical of the spirit which dominates the whole army. The men are not happy to be there. They long for the war to end. They do not put in their time in the slush and rain cheering and singing. They hanker for “Blighty.” They want to go home. But not until the grim business that brought them to France is satisfactorily finished. They want no Stockholm-made peace. They are fighting for a knock-out.

I left behind me in London a lot of dismal, gloomy, and down-hearted friends, candidates all for the Pessimists’ Club. I wish they could have hiked through the trenches with me. It is the finest cure in the world for the blues. It may thunder and pour day and night in Trenchland, and the country may be a morass for miles in every direction, but the sun of optimism and confidence is always shining in the British Army’s heart.

SOMETHING NEW FOR THE MARINES

“IF CORPORAL – ever wrote a better story for his newspaper than the one he has sent to us, I should certainly like to read it.” This high praise comes from Maj. W. H. Parker, head of the Marine Recruiting Service in New York, and is bestowed upon a letter in The Recruiters’ Bulletin, which was written by a marine, formerly a reporter in Philadelphia and now “Somewhere in France.” He rejoices at the start that “at last it is happening,” which “happening” is that the marines, “every scrapping one of them down to the last grizzled veteran, are undergoing new experiences – learning new tricks.” Of course this is beyond possibility, everybody will say, and the ex-reporter admits that —

One would think so after hearing of their experiences in far-away China, Japan, and the Philippines, near-by Cuba, Haiti, and Mexico, and other places which God forgot and which you and I never heard of; after hearing stories of daredevil bravery, fierce abandon and disregard for life and limb in the faithful discharge of their duties as soldiers of the sea and guardians of the peace in Uncle Sam’s dirty corners.

And yet here in France, among people of their own color and race, of paved streets and taxicabs, among the old men and women of the villages, among the poilus coming and going in a steady stream to and from the front, the marine is learning new things every day.

Packing up “back home” on a few hours’ notice is no new experience to the marine. Marching aboard a transport, with the date and hour of sailing unknown, is taken as a matter of course by the veteran. There is no cheering gallery, no weeping relatives, wife, or sweethearts, as he leaves to carry out the business in hand. It is just the same as if you were going to your office in the morning. You may return in time for dinner or you may be delayed. The only difference is that sometimes the marines do not return.

Although life aboard the transport which carried the first regiment of marines to new fields of action in France was a matter of routine to the average sea-going soldier, there was added the zest of expectation of an encounter with one of the floating perils, the “sub.” It was but a matter of two or three days, however, when everyone became accustomed to the numerous lookouts stationed about the ship, the frequent “abandon ship” drills, the strange orders which came down the line, and the new-fangled rules and regulations which permitted no lights or smoking after sundown.

Kaiser “Bill’s” pet sharks were contemptuously referred to as the “tin lizzies” of the sea. “We must play safe and avoid them,” was the policy of those entrusted with the safety of more than 2,000 expectant fighters, however. And we met them, too. Not one or two of them, but – (here the censor interfered.)

Since his arrival in France the marine has spent day after day in learning new things, not the least of which is that contrary to his usual experience of finding about him a hostile people, rifle in hand, and unknown danger ahead, he is among a people who welcome him as a friend and ally in the struggle against a common enemy. With the arrival of the American troops, the appealing outstretched hands of France were changed to hands of welcome, creating an atmosphere that might easily have turned the heads of men more balanced than the marines after being confined for more than two weeks aboard a ship, but —

Here, again, one comes in contact with the matter-of-fact administration of the marines. Arriving under such circumstances, the landing and encampment of the marines were effected with a military precision and businesslike efficiency which allowed no one for a moment to forget the serious nature of the mission upon which he had embarked.

Stores and supplies were loaded on trucks and, in less than three hours after the order was given to disembark, the marines, with their packs strapped over the shoulders, were marching to their camp just on the outskirts of the seaport town of – . Within another hour the whole regiment was under canvas, field-desks and typewriter-chests were unlocked, and regimental and other department offices were running along at full swing.

And that was the beginning of the period of training during which the marine is learning everything that is to be known about waging twentieth-century warfare. He is taking a post-graduate course in the intricacies of modern trench-building, grenade-throwing, and barbed-wire entanglements. And the very best men of the French Army are his instructors.

The marine is also learning the “lingo” of this country, the nicer phrases of the language as well as the slang of the trenches. But in the majority of cases experience was his teacher. Upon the arrival of the transport liberty hours were arranged for the marines, and, armed with a “Short Vocabulary of French Words and Phrases,” with which all had been supplied, they invaded the cafés, restaurants, and shops of the little old seaport town.

And it was the restaurants where one’s ignorance of French was most keenly felt. All sorts of queer and yet strangely familiar noises emanated from the curtained windows of the buvettes along the streets. Upon investigation it would be discovered that a marine, having lost his “vocabulary,” was flapping his arms and cackling for eggs, earnestly baahing for a lamb stew, or grunting to the best of his ability in a vain endeavor to make madame understand that he wanted roast pork. Imagine his chagrin to find that “pig” and “pork,” as shown on page 16, are “porc” in French and are pronounced just the same as in good old American. But the scenes that presented themselves on Sundays or fête days – take the 4th or 14th of July, for example – were such as never had been seen in any French town before. Picture a tiny café, low and whitewashed, ancient, weather-beaten, but immaculately clean, with its heavy ceiling-beams and huge fireplace with brass and copper furnishings. With this background imagine just as many tables as the little place can hold about which are crowded French and American soldiers, sailors, and marines.

The table in the corner there, for instance: two poilus, two American “jackies,” two marines, and an old Breton peasant farmer with his wife, fat, uncomprehending, and wild-eyed, and his daughter, red-lipped and of fair complexion – these three in from the country for a holiday, the women arrayed in the black cloth and velvet costumes, bright-colored silk aprons, and elaborate linen head-dress which identify them as native of a certain locality.

One of the “jackies” sings with gusto service songs of strong and colorful language, singing to himself save for the half-amused and wondering stares of the peasants. The younger of the Frenchmen shows by taking off his coat and unbuttoning his shirt where the shell-fragment penetrated which caused the paralysis in his left arm and sent him home on a month’s furlough, and the Americans eye with interest the actual fragment itself, now doing duty as a watch-charm.

But the hubbub and racket cease, and every one rushes to the windows and door as the Marine Band comes swinging along the water-front, playing with catching rhythm “Our Director.” The French burst out in cries of “Vive l’Amérique!” The fever spreads, and our soldiers and sailors yell “Vive la France!” or as near to it as they can get, as the procession marches by, and the fat old peasant woman says with full approval, “That’s beautiful!”

Another letter from the permanent training-camp of the marines, published in The Recruiters’ Bulletin, tells of an inspection of the regiment by General Pershing and General Pétain, the French Commander-in-Chief. We read “that the piercing eyes of ‘Black Jack’ rarely miss an unshaven face, badly polished shoes, or the sloppy appearance of anyone” among the soldiers under inspection, and the writer relates:

Together with the Commander-in-Chief of all the French forces and accompanied by several French generals, representing the most important military units in France, General Pershing made one of his now famous whirlwind inspection tours and descended upon the marines amid a cloud of dust which marked the line of travel of the high-powered French touring-cars which carried the generals. Not so very long before that the field-telephone in the regimental office rang and a voice came over the wire:

“The big blue machine is on the way down, and will probably be there in ten minutes.” That was sufficient. Two or three telephone-calls were hurriedly made, and the Colonel, accompanied by his staff, proceeded on “up the line,” met the General’s party, and the marines were ready.

The result of the inspection is summed up in the memorandum issued to the command and which says in part: “Yesterday, at the inspection of the regiment by General – , Commander-in-Chief of all the French forces, General Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American forces in France, and General – , commanding the – Division Chasseurs, who are instructing our men, General – congratulated the Colonel of our regiment on the splendid appearance of officers and men as well as the cleanliness of the town. General Pershing personally told the regimental commander that he wished to congratulate him on having such an excellent regiment.”

This announcement was read to the marines as they were lined up for their noonday meal. And where is the marine whose chest would not swell just a bit at this tribute paid by General Pershing to those upon whose shoulders rests the responsibility of maintaining and perpetuating the glorious history and fine traditions of the United States Marine Corps?

JUDGING BY HIS LETTERS

“Where’s your uncle, Tommy?”

“In France.”

“What is he doing?”

“I think he has charge of the war.”

BLESS THESE AMATEURS

 
“What are you knitting, my pretty maid?”
She purled, then dropped a stitch.
“A sock or a sweater, sir,” she said,
“And darned if I know which!”
 

NEW GROUNDS FOR EXEMPTION

The two young girls watched the “nutty young Cuthbert” pass along the street.

“Did he appeal for exemption?” said May.

“Yes,” said Ray, “you might have known he would.”

“On what grounds?”

“I don’t know,” replied Ray, “unless it was upon the ground that if he went to the war his wife’s father would have no son-in-law to support.”

SOUSA’S LITTLE JOKE

Lieut. John Philip Sousa, who is organizing military bands for the navy, was talking to a correspondent about the submarine danger.

“A friend of mine, a cornet virtuoso,” he said, “was submarined in the Mediterranean. The English paper that reported the affair worded it thus:

“‘The famous cornetist, Mr. Hornblower, though submarined by the Germans in the Mediterranean, was able to appear at Marseilles the following evening in four pieces.’”

RAPID MILITARY ADVANCEMENT

A certain west end tailor, being owed a considerable amount by a colonel who was received everywhere in society, made a bargain with the gentleman. He stipulated that instead of paying his debt, the colonel should introduce himself and family into high society. To this the colonel agreed and not long after the tailor received an invitation to dinner.