Brown, because the Americans
wouldn't have me," replied Thane tersely. "I tried to get in, but
they wouldn't pass me. Said I had a weak heart and a whole lot
of rubbish like that. It's no wonder the American Air Service was
punk. I went over to Toronto and they took me like a shot in the
Royal British. They weren't so blamed finicky and old womanish.
All they asked for in an applicant was any kind of a heart at all
so long as it was with the cause. I don't suppose I ought to say
it, but the American Air Service was a joke."
"I hope you ain't turning British in your feelings, Court," remarked
Amos Vick. "It's purty difficult to be both, you know,--English
and Yankee."
"I'm American through and through, Mr. Vick, even though I did
serve under the British flag till I was gassed and invalided out."
"Affects the lungs, don't it?" inquired old Caleb.
"I don't like to talk about it, Mr. Brown. I'm trying to forget
what hell was like. I was in hospital for four months. It took a
lot more nerve to draw a breath then than it did to fly over the
German lines with the Boches popping away from all sides. I didn't
mind the wounds I sustained,--but the gas! Gee, it was horrible."
"Your ma said in her letter to me that you'd had pneumonia twice
since you got back," said Mrs. Vick. "Was that due to the gas?"
"I suppose so. They thought I had tuberculosis for awhile, you
see.
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