"Did you just find your brother there by accident, Tom?"
"I--I got to be--ashamed----"
"Yes," Mr. Conne said kindly; "you"ve got to be ashamed of _him_. But you see, I haven"t got to be ashamed of you, have I? How"d you find out about it? Tell me the whole thing, Tom."
And so, sitting there with this shrewd man who had befriended him, Tom told the whole story as he could not have told it to anyone else. He went away back into the old Barrel Alley days, when he had "swiped"
apples from Adolf Schmitt and his brother Bill had worked in Schmitt"s grocery store. He told how it used to make him mad when his brother "got licked unfair," as he said, and he did not know why Mr. Conne screwed up his face at that. He told about how he "had to decide quick, kind of,"
when the officers confronted him in his brother"s stateroom, and how the thought about Uncle Sam being his uncle had decided him. He told how he had had to keep his face turned away from his brother so that he "wouldn"t feel so mean, like." And here again Mr. Conne gave his face another screw and Tom did not understand why. That was one trouble with Tom Slade--he was so thick that he could not understand a lot of things that were perfectly plain to other people.
CHAPTER XVIII
HE TALKS WITH MR. CONNE AND SEES THE BOYS START FOR THE FRONT
"What--what do you think they"ll do with him?"
It was the question uppermost in Tom"s mind, but he could not bring himself to ask it until his visitor was about to leave.
"Why, that"s hard to say, Tommy," Mr. Conne answered kindly but cautiously; then after a moment"s silence he added, "I"ll strain a point and tell you something because--well, because you"re ent.i.tled to know.
But you must keep it very quiet. They hope to learn much more from him than he has told, but they found in his luggage a lot of plans and specifications of the "Liberty Motor.""
"I"m glad," said Tom simply.
"Of course, we suspected from the letters sent to Schmitt that somebody had such plans, but we had no clue as to who it was. You grabbed more than the dish when you put your hand through that transom, Tommy. You got hold of the plans of the "Liberty Motor" too."
"I didn"t take your advice," said Tom ruefully; "I got a good lesson."
"That"s all right, my boy. You"ve got a brain in your head and you did a good job. It"ll all go to your credit, and the other part won"t be remembered. So _you_ try not to think of it."
"They won"t kill him, will they?"
"They won"t do anything just at present, my boy. Now put your mind on your work and don"t think of anything else----"
"Have I got my job yet?"
"Why, certainly," Mr. Conne laughed; "I"ll see you again, Tommy.
Good-by."
And Tom tried this time to follow his advice. He was soon released and the officer, whom he had so feared, was good enough to say, "You did well and you"ve had a pretty tough experience." The captain spoke kindly to him, too, and all the ship"s people seemed to understand. The few soldiers who had not yet been sent forward to billets near the front, did not jolly him or even refer to his detective propensities. They did not even mimic him when he said "kind of," as they had done before.
He had little to do during the ship"s brief stay in port and Mr. Conne, who was there on some mysterious business, showed him about the quaint old French town and treated him more familiarly than he had ever done before. For Tom Slade had received his first wound in the great war and though it was long in healing, it yielded to kindness and sympathy, and these everyone showed him.
And so there came a day when he and Mr. Conne stood upon the platform amid a throng of French people and watched the last contingent of the boys as they called back cheerily from the queer-looking freight cars which were to bear them up through the French country to that mysterious "somewhere"--the most famous place in France.
"So long, Whitey!" they called. "See you later."
"Good-by, Tommy, old boy; hope the tin fish don"t get you going back!"
"Hurry up back and bring some more over, Whitey!"
"_Bon voyage!_"
"_Au revoir!_"
"Give my regards to Broadway, Whitey."
"Cheer up, Whitey, old pal. Kaiser Bill"ll be worse off than you are when _we_ get at him."
"_N"importe_, Whitey."
"I"ll be there," called Tom.
"_Venez donc!_" some one answered, amid much laughter.
The last he saw of them they were waving their hats to him and making fun of each other"s French. He watched the train wistfully until it pa.s.sed out of sight.
"They seem to like you, Tommy," Mr. Conne smiled. "Is that a new name, Whitey?"
"Everybody kinder always seems to give me nicknames," said Tom. "I"ve had a lot of people jolly me, but never anybody so much as those soldiers--not even the scouts. I"ll miss "em going back."
"The next lot you bring over will be just the same, Tom. They"ll jolly you, too."
"I don"t mind it," said Tom. "But one thing I was thinking----"
Mr. Conne rested his hand on Tom"s shoulder and smiled very pleasantly at him. He seemed to be going out of his way these days to befriend him and to understand him.
"It"s about how you get to know people and get to like them, kind of, and then don"t see them any more. That feller, Archibald Archer, that worked on the other ship I was on--I"d like to know where he is if he"s alive. I liked that feller."
"It"s a big world, Tom."
"Maybe I might see him again some time--same as I met my--my brother."
"Perhaps," said Mr. Conne, cheerily. "It"s always the unexpected that happens, you know."
"I saw _you_ again, anyway."
"Yes, you can"t get away from me."
"And Frenchy--maybe I"ll never see him any more. He"s got people that live in Alsace; he told me all about them. He hasn"t heard from them since the war first began.--Gee, I hope Germany has to give Alsace back to France--just for his sake!"
Mr. Conne laughed.
"Most of the people there stick up for France in their hearts, only they dasn"t show it. He gave me this b.u.t.ton; it"s made out of a cannon, and it means the French people there got to help you."