The colonel is sitting, waiting, under an electric bulb. The bulb is receiving its power from another enlisted man, who sits back in the shadows hand-pedaling the twin generator cranks. It is Eddie’s friend Private Paddy (“Electro”) McGonigle, an Irish lad from New Jersey, one of those million virtuous and adjusted city poor you know from the movies—you’ve seen them dancing, singing, hanging out the washing on the lines, getting drunk at wakes, worrying about their children going bad, I just don’t know any more Faather, he’s a good b’y but he’s runnin’ with a crool crowd, on through every
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