Norman Dalrymple did not return home, nor did he notify his family of his rejection. Instead, he went back to New York, took a room at the quietest of his numerous clubs, engaged a trainer, and went on a diet. He minded neither of the latter very greatly for the first few days, but in time he learned to abhor both.

He shunned his friends; he avoided the club cafÉ as he would have avoided a dragon’s cave. The sight of a push-button became a temptation and a trial. Every morning he wrapped himself up like a sore thumb and ambled round the Park reservoir with his pores streaming; every afternoon he chased his elusive trainer round a gymnasium, striving to pin the man’s hateful features, and never quite succeeding. Evenings he spent in a Turkish bath, striving to attain the boiling-point and failing by the fraction of a degree. He acquired a terrifying thirst—a monstrous, maniac thirst which gallons of water would not quench.

Ten days of this and he had lost three pounds. He had dwindled away to a mere two hundred and eighty-two, and was faintly cheered.

But he possessed a sweet tooth—a double row of them—and he dreamed of things fattening to eat. One dream in particular tried the strongest fiber of his being. It was of wallowing through a No Man’s Land of blanc-mange with shell-craters filled with cream. Frozen desserts—ice-cold custards! He trembled weakly when he thought of them, which was almost constantly. Occasionally, when the craving became utterly unbearable, he skulked guiltily into a restaurant and ordered his favorite dish, corn-starch pudding.

At the end of three weeks he was bleached; his face was drawn and miserable; he looked forth from eyes like those of a Saint Bernard. He had gained a pound!

Human nature could stand no more. Listlessly he wandered into the club cafÉ and there came under the notice of a friend. It was no more possible for Dimples to enter a room unobserved than for the Leviathan to slip unobtrusively into port. The friend stared in amazement, then exclaimed:

“Why, Norm! You look sick.”

“‘Sick?’” the big fellow echoed. “I’m not sick; I’m dying.” And, since it was good to share his burden, he related what had happened to him. “Turned me down; wouldn’t give me a chance,” he concluded. “When I strained the scales, they wanted to know who I had in my lap. I’ve been banting lately, but I gain weight at it. It agrees with me. Meanwhile, Shipp and the others are in uniform.” Dimples bowed his head in his huge, plump hands. “Think of it! Why, I’d give a leg to be in olive drab and wear metal letters on my collar! ‘Sick?’ Good Lord!”

“I know,” the friend nodded. “I’m too old to go across, but I’m off for Washington Monday. A dollar a year. I’ve been drawing fifty thousand, by the way.”

“I’m out of that, too,” Dimples sighed. “Don’t know enough—never did anything useful. But I could fight, if they’d let me.” He raised his broad face and his eyes were glowing. “I’m fat, but I could fight. I could keep the fellows on their toes and make ’em hit the line. If—if they built ships bigger, I’d stowaway.”

“See here—” The speaker had a sudden thought. “Why don’t you try the Y?”

“‘The Y?’ Yale?”

“No, no. The Y. M. C. A.”

“Oh, that! I’ve hired a whole gymnasium of my own where I can swear out loud.”

“The Y. M. C. A. is sending men overseas.”

“I’m not cut out for a chaplain.”

“They’re sending them over to cheer up the boys, to keep them amused and entertained, to run huts—”

Dalrymple straightened himself slowly.

“I know; but I thought they were all pulpit-pounders.”

“Nothing of the sort! They’re regular fellows, like us. They manage canteens and sell the things our boys can’t get. They don’t let them grow homesick; they make them play games and take care of themselves and realize that they’re not forgotten. Some of them get right up front and carry hot soup and smokes into the trenches.”

“Me for that!” Dimples was rising majestically. “I could carry soup—more soup than any man living. The trenches might be a little snug for me round the waist, but I’d be careful not to bulge them. Cheer up the boys! Make ’em laugh! Say—that would help, wouldn’t it?” He hesitated; then, a bit wistfully, he inquired, “The Y fellows wear—uniforms, too, don’t they?”

“Well, rather. You can hardly tell them from the army.”

In Dalrymple’s voice, when he spoke, there was an earnestness, a depth of feeling, that his hearer had never suspected.

“Uniforms mean a lot to me lately. Every time I see a doughboy I want to stand at attention and throw out my chest and draw in my stomach—as far as I can. There’s something sacred about that olive drab. It’s like your mother’s wedding-dress, only holier, and decenter, if possible. Somehow, it seems to stand for everything clean and honorable and unselfish. The other day I saw the old Forty-first marching down to entrain, and I yelled and cried and kissed an old lady. Those swinging arms, those rifles aslant, those leggings flashing, and that sea of khaki rising, falling—Gee! There’s something about it. These are great times for the fellows who aren’t too old or too fat to fight.”

“Those Y men fight, in their way, just as hard as the other boys, and they don’t get half as much sleep or half as much attention. Nobody makes a fuss over them.”

Dimples waited to hear no more. The Y. M. C. A.! He had not realized the sort of work it was doing. But to keep the boys fit to fight! That was almost as good as being one of them. And he could do it—better than anybody. As his taxicab sped across town he leaned back with a sigh of contentment; for the first time in days he smiled. The Y. M. C. A. would have no scales! To the boys at the front a fat man might be funnier even than a skinny one. He was mighty glad he had heard of the Y in time. And it would be glad he had, for his name was worth a lot to any organization. No more dry bread and spinach—Gott strafe spinach! How he hated it! No more exercise, either; he would break training instantly and tell that high-priced reducer what he really thought of him. Useful work, work to win the war, was one thing, but this loathsome process of trying out abdominal lard—ugh! He decided to dine like a self-respecting white man that very night, and to deny himself nothing. The club chef made a most wonderful corn-starch pudding, indescribably delicious and frightfully fattening. At the mere thought, an eager, predatory look came into Dimples’s eyes. He would go overseas without delay; he would be in France doing his bit while Shipp and the others were still rehearsing their little tricks and learning to shout, “Forward, ouch!” Of course those fellows would win commissions—they were welcome to the glory—but meanwhile he would be right down in the dirt and the slime with the boys in leggings, cheering them up, calling them “Bill” and “Joe,” sharing their big and their little troubles, and putting the pep into them. That’s what they needed, that’s what the world needed—pep! It would win the war.

Dalrymple was surprised when he entered the Y. M. C. A. quarters to find them busy and crowded. He sent in his card, then seated himself at the end of a line of waiting men. He wondered if, by any chance, they could be applicants like himself, and his complacency vanished when he learned that they could be—that, indeed, they were. His surprise deepened when he saw that in no wise did they resemble psalm-shouters and Testament-worms such as he had expected, but that, on the contrary, they looked like ordinary, capable business and professional men.

Dimples wondered if this were, after all, a competitive service. He broke into a gentle, apprehensive perspiration.

His name was called finally; he rose and followed a boy into a room where several men were seated at a table. Two of them were elderly, typical; they wore various unbecoming arrangements of white whiskers, and one glance told Dimples that they knew a lot about God. One of the others resembled a judge, and he it was who spoke first.

“You wish to go to France for the Y. M. C. A.?” the latter inquired.

“Yes, sir. They wouldn’t let me in at Plattsburg. I’m too fat, or the camp is too small. I’d very much like to go overseas.”

“It is hardly necessary to ask if you have had experience in promoting social entertainments and recreations.”

The speaker smiled. Dimples’s face broke into an answering grin.

“‘Entertainments!’ ‘Recreations!’ They are my stock in trade. I’m an authority on all kinds of both; that’s what ails me.”

Another member of the board inquired:

“Are you a temperate man, Mr. Dalrymple?”

“Oh no!” Dimples shook his head. “Not at all.”

“What sort of—er—beverages do you drink?”

“What have you got?” the young giant blithely asked. Noting that his comedy met with no mirthful response, he explained more seriously: “Why, I drink practically everything. I have no particular favorites. I dare say it’s against your rules, so I’ll taper off if you say so. I’d take the Keeley to get across. Of course I make friends easier when I’m moderately lit—anybody does. I’m extraordinarily cheerful when I’m that way. You’ve no idea how—”

“Surely you understand that we tolerate no drinking whatever?”

“No, sir; I didn’t fully understand. I know several Christian young men who drink—more or less. However, that’s all right with me. I’ve never tried to quit drinking, so I’m sure I can.”

“Are you familiar with the character and the aims of the Young Men’s Christian Association?” One of the white-bearded gentlemen put this question.

“In a general way only. I knew you had a gym and a swimming-tank and ran some sort of a Sunday-school. It never appealed to me, personally, until I heard about this work you’re doing in France. That’s my size. That fits me like a pair of tights.”

“Do you play cards?”

“Certainly. I’m lucky, too. Any game the boys want, from bridge to black jack.”

“I mean—do you play for money?”

“Is that on the black list, too?” Dimples’s enthusiasm was slowly oozing away. Noting the falling temperature of the room, he confessed honestly, but with some reluctance: “I suppose I do all of the things that ordinary idle fellows do. I drink and gamble and swear and smoke and overeat and sleep late. But that doesn’t hurt me for carrying soup, does it?”

No one answered this challenge; instead, he was the recipient of another question that caused him to squirm.

“Would you consider yourself a moral young man?”

Slowly the applicant shook his head.

“To what Church do you belong?”

“I don’t.”

“How long since you attended divine service?”

“A good many years, I’m afraid.”

There followed a moment of silence; the men at the table exchanged glances, and into Dimples’s face there came an apprehensive, hunted look. He wet his lips, then said:

“Anyhow, you can’t accuse me of mendacity. I don’t lie. Now that you know the worst about me, I’d like to inventory my good points.” This he proceeded to do, but in all honesty it must be said that his showing was not impressive. Never having given serious thought to his virtues, there were few that he could recall at such short notice. He concluded by saying: “I know I can make good if you’ll give me a chance. I—I’ll work like a dog, and I’ll keep the boys laughing. I won’t let them get homesick. I—Why, gentlemen, this is my last chance! It will break my heart if you turn me down.”

Not unkindly the “judge” said:

“We will consider your application and notify you.”

This very kindliness of tone caused the fat man to pale.

“I know what that means,” he protested. “That’s Y. M. C. A. for ‘no.’ Let me go,” he implored. “I’ll serve. I’ll stand the punishment. I’m strong and I’ll work till I drop. You won’t be ashamed of me, honestly.”

“We’ll notify you without delay, Mr. Dalrymple.”

There was no more to be said. Dimples wallowed out of the room with his head down.

That night he walked the soft-carpeted floor of his chamber until very late, and when he did go to bed it was not to sleep. Daylight found him turning restlessly, his eyes wide open and tragic. Another failure! Within him the spirit of sacrifice burned with consuming fury, but there was no outlet for it. Through his veins ran the blood of a fighting family; nevertheless, a malicious prank of nature had doomed him to play the part of Falstaff or of Fatty Arbuckle. What could he do to help? Doubtless he could find work for his hands in ship-yard or foundry, but they were soft, white hands, and they knew no trade. Give? He had given freely and would give more; but everybody was giving. No; action called him. He belonged in the roar and the din of things where men’s spirit tells.

That afternoon he was waddling down Fifth Avenue when Mr. Augustus Van Loan stopped him to exclaim:

“Good Heavens, Dimples! What has happened to you?”

Van Loan was a malefactor of great wealth. His name was a hissing upon the lips of soap-box orators. None of his malefactions, to be sure, had ever yet been uncovered, nor were any of the strident-voiced orators even distantly acquainted with him, but his wealth was an established fact of such enormity that in the public eye he was suspect.

“I’m all in,” the disconsolate mammoth mumbled, and then made known his sorrow. “Too fat to get in the army; too soft morally to get in the Y. M. C. A. I didn’t know how rotten I am. I can’t carry a gun for my country; I’m not good enough to lug soup to the boys who do. And, meanwhile, the Huns are pressing forward.”

Van Loan eyed him shrewdly.

“Do you feel it as badly as all that?”

Dalrymple nodded.

“I don’t want to be a hero. Who ever heard of a hero with a waistband like mine? No; I’d just like to help our lads grin and bear it, and be a big, cheerful fat brother to them.”

Without a word Mr. Van Loan took a card from his pocket and wrote a few lines thereon.

“Take that down to the Y and tell them to send you on the next ship.” He handed Dimples the card, whereupon the giant stared at him.

“D—d’you know that outfit?”

“Know it?” Van Loan smiled. “I’m the fellow who’s raising the money for them. They’ve darn near broken me, but—it’s worth it.”

With a gurgling shout Dimples wrung the malefactor’s hand; then he bolted for the nearest taxi-stand and squeezed himself through a cab door.

Ten minutes later he entered the boardroom at the Y. M. C. A. and flung Van Loan’s card upon the table.

“Read that!” he told the astonished occupants.

The “judge” read and passed the card along.

“Where do I go from here?” Dimples demanded, in a voice of triumph.

“Why”—the “judge” cleared his throat—“to your tailor’s for a uniform, I should say.”