CHAPTER FOUR.
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES "That's the way it is," thought Tom, "you get to know fellers and like 'em, and then you get separated and you don't see 'em any more." Perhaps he was the least bit homesick, coming into this new sector where all were strangers to him.

In any event, as he sat there finishing his meal he fell to thinking of the past and of the "fellers" he had known.
He had known a good many for despite his soberness there was something about him which people liked.

Most of his friends had taken delight in jollying him and he was one of those boys who are always being nicknamed wherever they go.

Over in the Toul sector they "joshed" and "kidded" him from morning till night but woe be to you if you had sought to harm him! He had been sorry, in a way, to leave the Toul sector, just as he had been sorry to leave Bridgeboro when he got his first job on a ship.
"That's one thing fellers can't understand," he thought, "how you can be sorry about a thing and glad too.

Girls understand better--I'll say that much for 'em, even though I--even though they never had much use for me----" He fell to thinking of the scout troop of which he had been a member away back in America, of Mr.Ellsworth, the scoutmaster, who had lifted him out of the gutter, and of Roy Blakeley who was always fooling, and Peewee Harris.