"
"But how?" asked Courtenay--"if that's not a secret."
"Why, that guy in the testin' sheds was plump tickled when I told him
my notion. He fixed it all, and me suddenly discoverin' I was mistook
for a Canadian I just said 'M-m-m' when anybody asked me. I had to
enlist though, to put the deal through, an' after that there wasn't
trouble enough to clog the works of a lady's watch. But there was
trouble enough at the other end. My dad fair riz up an' screeched
cablegrams at me when I hinted at goin' to the Front. He made out it
was on the business side he was kickin', with the attitude of the
U-nited States toward the squabble thrown in as extra. Neutrals, he
said we was, benevolent neutrals, an' he wasn't goin' to have a son o'
his steppin' outside the ring-fence o' the U-nited States Constitution,
to say nothing of mebbe losin' good business we'd been do in' with the
Hoggheimers, an' Schmidt Brothers, an' Fritz Schneckluk, an' a heap
more buyers o' his that would rear up an' rip-snort an' refuse to do
another cent's worth of dealing with a firm that was sellin' 'em autos
wi' one hand an' shootin' holes in their brothers and cousins and
Kaisers wi' the other. I soothed the old man down by pointing out I was
to go working these lorries, and the British Army don't shoot Germans
with motor-lorries; and I'd be able to keep him posted in any weak
points, if, and as, and when they developed, so he could keep ahead o'
the crowd in improvements and hooking in more fat contracts; and
lastly, that the Schmidt customer crowd didn't need to know a thing
about me being here unless he was dub enough to tell 'em.
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