Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/87

 baptised after lunch with the name of "Montzèville." Such a cute name for a dog.

Cooky calls our habitation on Dombasle alley the "Den of Thieves" and he certainly is right. One would think we had been brought up along with Bill Sykes in Fagin's den. Our development into kleptomaniacs began when Ott Kann hid underneath his bed about fifty pounds of time fuses and unexploded hand grenades which he had picked up near Esnes. We found out about it the same day the poor brancardier was killed, fooling with a grenade at Montzèville and it made us sort of nervous to see Ott sitting on his stretcher evenings banging away on his dainty little souvenirs with hammer and chisel. He appeared quite unconcerned but we weren't. The first time he tried it, the grating sound of the steel upon the brass and iron and the thought of what might happen if he struck a cap, caused us to implore him to stop. Finally, since Ott was immovable, we all turned in, hoping that, if the thing did explode, we would miss most of the fragments because we were lying down. Ott went to Post Two on the following day, and before he returned, his relics were resting comfortably at the bottom of a neighboring well. He immediately suspected Bradley, who was really innocent of the trick, and hid two of his three blankets just as the latter was starting for Esnes, on twenty-four hour duty.