Well, Al, just as this was coming off her old man come atme
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THE REAL DOPE,
By
RING W. LARDNER
AUTHOR OF
GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS, MY FOUR WEEKS IN FRANCE,
TREAT 'EM ROUGH, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
MAY WILSON PRESTON
AND
M. L. BLUMENTHAL
CHAPTER I
AND MANY A STORMY WIND SHALL BLOW
On the Ship Board, Jan. 15.
FRIEND AL: Well Al I suppose it is kind of foolish to be writeing you aletter now when they won't be no chance to mail it till we get across theold pond but still and all a man has got to do something to keep themselfbusy and I know you will be glad to hear all about our trip so I might aswell write you a letter when ever I get a chance and I can mail them to youall at once when we get across the old pond and you will think I have wrotea book or something.
Jokeing a side Al you are lucky to have an old pal thats going to see allthe fun and write to you about it because its a different thing haveinga person write to you about what they see themself then getting the dopeout of a newspaper or something because you will know that what I tell youis the real dope that I seen myself where if you read it in a newspaperyou know its guest work because in the 1st. place they don't leave thereporters get nowheres near the front and besides that they wouldn't gothere if they had a leave because they would be to scared like the baseballreporters that sets a mile from the game because they haven't got the nerveto get down on the field where a man could take a punch at them and evenwhen they are a mile away with a screen in front of them they duck whensomebody hits a pop foul.
Well Al it is against the rules to tell you when we left the old U. S. orwhere we come away from because the pro German spy might get a hold of aman's letter some way and then it would be good night because he would senda telegram to where the submarines is located at and they wouldn't send no1 or 2 submarines after us but the whole German navy would get after usbecause they would figure that if they ever got us it would be a rich hall.When I say that Al I don't mean it to sound like I was swell headed orsomething and I don't mean it would be a rich hall because I am on board ornothing like that but you would know what I am getting at if you seen thebunch we are takeing across.
In the 1st. place Al this is a different kind of a trip then the time Iwent around the world with the 2 ball clubs because then it was just the 1boat load and only for two or 3 of the boys on board it wouldn't of made nodifference if the boat had of turned a turtle only to pave the whole bottomof the ocean with ivory. But this time Al we have got not only 1 boat loadbut we got four boat loads of soldiers alone and that is not all we havegot. All together Al there is 10 boats in the parade and 6 of them is whatthey call the convoys an