Joe snorted. He seldom met someone not of Category Military who didn't want a special detailed description of some gory action in which Joe had participated. And like all veterans of combat, there was nothing he liked less to do. Combat was something which, when done, you wished to leave behind you. Were brain washing really practicable, it was this you would wish to wash away.
But Joe, like others before him, down through the ages, had found a way out. He had a store of a dozen or so humorous episodes with which he could regale listeners. That time his horse's cinch had loosened when he was on a scouting mission and he had galloped around and around amidst a large company of enemy skirmishers, most of them running after him and trying to drag him from the horse's back, while he hung on for dear life.
But it occurred to him that the boy might better appreciate a tale which involved his father, the Telly reporter, and some act of daring the small man had performed the better to serve his fracas-buff audience.
He was well launched into the tale, boosting Freddy Soligen's part beyond reality, but not impossibly so, when that worthy entered the room, breaking it off.
While Freddy was shaking hands with his visitor, Sam said, "Hey, Papa, you never told me about that time you were surrounded by all the field artillery, and only you and Major Mauser and three other men got out."
Freddy grinned fondly at the boy and then looked his reproach at Joe. "What're you trying to do, make the life of a Telly reporter sound romantic to the kid? Stick to the priesthood, son, there's more chicken dinners involved." He saw Joe was impatient to talk to him. "How about leaving us alone for a while, Sam? We've got some business."
"Sure, Papa. I've got to memorize some Greek chants, anyway. How come they don't have all these rituals and all in some language everybody can understand?"
"Then everybody might understand them," Freddy said sourly. "Then what'd happen?"
His son said, "Major, maybe you can finish that story some other time, huh?"
Joe said, "Sure, sure, sure. It winds up with your father the hero and they bump him up to Upper-Upper and make him head of Category Communications."
"On the trank again," Freddy grumbled, but Joe sensed he wasn't particularly amused.