"Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does
the sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May
help ye to get in right with "em."

"Don't do no good," said Fuselli.... "It's juss luck. But keep
neat-like and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they
start to ride ye, show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to
git on in this army."

"Ye're goddam right," said the tall youth. "Don't let 'em ride
yer.... What's yer name, rookie?"

"Eisenstein."

"This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli....
Goin' to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?"

"No, I'm trying to find a skirt." The little man leered wanly.
"Glad to have got ackwainted."

"Goddam kike!" said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side
street, planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the
sickly leaves rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and
coal dust.

"Kikes ain't so bad," said Fuselli, "I got a good friend who's a
kike."