“What’ll we do with our old suits?” asked Ned, as, with his chums, he walked toward the clothing department, a store in itself.

“They go into the discard,” answered Bob, who, it seems, had been making inquiries. “I suppose we can send ’em home and have ’em kept for us until after the war.”

“That’s what I’m going to do,” declared Ned. “This is a good suit, though it looks a bit mussy now. I’m not going to throw it away.”

“You might as well,” put in Jerry.

“Why so? This war may not last as long as we think,” Ned made comment. “And suits, and everything else, will be a lot higher after it’s over. Might as well save what I can. Don’t see why it won’t do me any good.”

“Because it won’t fit you,” Jerry returned. “Don’t you know what our captain told us? He said the new uniforms we get will hang on some of us like bags for a while, but when we fill out our muscles by the exercise and drill, we’ll fill out the uniforms, too.

[126]

“Now your tailor, Ned, and I will say he is a good one, made your civilian suit to fit you. In other words he favored you. He padded the hollow places and so on. But in a couple of months you’ll fill out so that the suit you’re wearing now will look like a set of hand-me-downs from the Bowery in New York.”

“Well, I’ll send it home, anyhow,” decided Ned.

“Yes, it may come in handy for your mother’s charity work,” agreed Jerry.

Before going to the tailor shop, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with others of the recruits, were measured. These measurements were standardized, so that when each young man went in to get his uniform, the officer in charge merely called off a certain number to designate coat, trousers, hat and so on.

The first outfit issued to the boys consisted of one coat, a pair of trousers, a hat, with cord, three pairs of drawers, two pairs of laces, a pair of leggings, a set of ornaments, an overcoat, two flannel shirts, two pairs of shoes, six pairs of socks, a belt, a pair of gloves and three undershirts. The value of each article was set down and varied from a hat cord, marked as worth six and a half cents, to an overcoat, which cost the government $14.50, making a total of about $45 for each young soldier. For this, of course, Ned, Bob, and Jerry paid nothing. A private gets his uniform[127] and food for nothing, but an officer has to buy his.

“Return to barracks and get into your uniforms for inspection,” was the order the boys received, and they were glad to do it. There were some, like Ned, who sent their civilian clothes home to be used as parents saw fit, and there was a general opinion, coinciding with Jerry’s, that they would be of little use to the owners themselves after their army service, for the young men would, indeed, be of different physical appearance and size.

“Well, how do I look?” asked Ned, as he and his two chums finished dressing in the barracks.

“It fits you sort of quick,” answered Jerry.

The new uniform was, in truth, a trifle loose.

“Yours fits the same way,” laughed Ned. “I guess I’ll do a double stunt of exercise to fill out quicker.”

“Bob looks good in his,” commented the tall motor boy. “It’s because he’s so fat. When he loses some of his flesh he’ll look as though he was wearing a meal sack.”

“Watch your own step,” said Bob, with a laugh. “I’m satisfied.”

There were jokes and jests among the recruits about the appearance of one another, and when Pug Kennedy walked out on the way to drill, to[128] which the squad was summoned, Jerry called to him:

“You’ve got your hat cord on backwards, old man.”

It was not that Jerry felt any particular liking for Michael Kennedy, to give him his real name, but the tall lad did not want any member of his squad to look unmilitary, nor did he want a reprimand to be directed toward Pug, as it might reflect on his companions. But Pug Kennedy was still in an ungracious mood, it seemed, for he answered Jerry’s well-meant remark with:

“Mind your own business! It’s my hat cord.”

“True enough,” agreed Jerry, good-naturedly; “but it may not be long, if you wear it that way.”<............