and plum pudding. You’ll stay, I hope.”

“Oh! Sure!” Dave agreed.

His visit to the flying corps’ mess was one not soon to be forgotten. He had read magazine stories of these fighters. Loud, boisterous, wild and a bit coarse, that was how they had been pictured. To his surprise he found them a simple, kindly lot, with manners that would have put many a college group to shame.

“You’ve really got to be up to things to be a-flying in this squadron,” the Young Lord explained. “And in any other, for that matter. Drinking, loud laughs, roughness—well, it doesn’t seem to go with life-and-death flying, that’s all.

“You have to be a man,” he added after a pause. “And a man’s nearly always a gentleman as well.”

Chapter VIII Roll Out the Barrel

Chapter VIII

When late that afternoon Dave walked with Cherry to the village to catch the bus to London, he carried a parcel under his arm. “My hiking boots,” he explained. “These hard roads have worn the soles thin.”

“Oh! I’m glad,” Cherry exclaimed. “You are going to like Uncle John. He’s our shoemaker. We call him that though I’m sure he’s really uncle to no one. He’s very old and still does all his work the hard way, by hand. Wonderful work it is, too.”

Dave did like Uncle John. Seated there at his bench, a leather apron on his lap and nails between his teeth, he seemed to have just moved out of a very old story book.

“Do you still make shoes as well as repair them?” Dave asked.

“Oh, yes, now and then.” The old man’s smile was good to see. “I’ve made all the Young Lord’s shoes since he was a baby.

“But then,” he sighed, “times have changed. You can’t get the leather any more. It used to be that I could make a pair of shoes and guarantee them for five years. Those times are gone.

“But perhaps it is best that it should be so,” he added cheerfully. “Nowdays people like change. If you only pay one pound for a pair of shoes, you can afford more than one pair.” Taking a tack from his mouth, he drove it home, then another.

“He lives in two small rooms behind the shop,” Cherry said when they were outside. “His 

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