"Ye think so?" asked his friend, in greater astonishment than ever.
"Man, if ye've been to the war do ye not know it for sure and
certain?"
"Well, I will tell ye how it is," said Tamson, very slowly and
wearily. "I was in the reserve, do ye ken. And I was standin' in
front of my hoose one day in August, thinkin' of nothin' at all. I
marked a man who was coming doon the street, wi' a blue paper in his
hand, and studyin' the numbers on the doorplates. But I paid no great
heed to him until he stopped and spoke to me.
"He had stopped outside my hoose and looked at the number, and then
at his blue paper. And then he turned to me.
"'Are ye Tamson, the baker?' he asked me--just as ye asked me that
same question the noo.
"And I said to him, just as I said it to ye, 'Aye, I'm Tamson,
the baker.'
"'Then it's Hamilton Barracks for ye, Tamson,' he said, and handed me
the blue paper.
"Four hours from the time when he handed me the blue paper in front
of my hoose in Glasgow I was at Hamilton Barracks. In twelve hours I
was in Southhampton. In twenty hours I was in France. And aboot as
soon as I got there I was in a lot of shooting and running this way
and that that they ha' told me since was the Battle of the Marne.
"And in twenty-four hours more I was on my way back to Glasgow! In
forty-eight hours I woke up in Stobe Hill Infirmary and the nurse was
saying in my ear: 'Ye're all richt the noon, Tamson.
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