You'll spoil it."
I gazed up at the monumental mass of coal rearing itself like a
dark-town Matterhorn above my head and swore fervently never to molest
it again.
"Go back to your outfit and get washed and tell your P.O. for me that
you can't come here no more, and," he added, as I was about to depart,
"take that unusual looking bit of animal life with you--it's all
wrong. Police his body or he'll ruin some of your pals' white pants
and they wouldn't like that at all."
I feared they wouldn't.
"Yes, sir," I replied in a crumpled voice, "Much obliged, sir."
"Please go away now," he said quietly, "or I think I might do you an
injury." He was fingering the shovel nervously as he spoke. Thus
Fogerty and I departed, banished even from our dusky St. Helena.
_July 9th._ Working on the theory of opposites, I was next placed as a
waiter in the Chief Petty Officer's Mess over in the First Regiment. I
wasn't so good here, it seems. There was something wrong with my
technique. The coal pile had ruined me for delicate work. I
continually kept mistaking the plate in my hand for a shovel, a
mistake which led to disastrous results. I will say this for the
chiefs, however--they were as clean-cut, hard-eating a body of men as
I have ever met.
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