eak in measured terms of
brands of cigars and weather. Gradually, working side by side with
Carl, Haviland seemed to find him a friend in whom to confide. Once or
twice they went by trolley to San Francisco, to explore Chinatown or
drop in on soldier friends of Haviland at the Presidio.

* * * * *

From the porch of a studio on Telegraph Hill, in San Francisco, they
were looking down on the islands of the bay, waiting for the return of
an artist whom Haviland knew. Inarticulate dreamers both, they
expressed in monosyllables the glory of bluewater before them, the
tradition of R. L. S. and Frank Norris, the future of aviation. They
gave up the attempt to explain the magic of San Francisco--that
city-personality which transcends the opal hills and rare amber
sunlight, festivals, and the transplanted Italian hill-town of
Telegraph Hill, liners sailing out for Japan, and memories of the
Forty-niners. It was too subtle a spirit, too much of it lay in human
life with the passion of the Riviera linked to the strength of the
North, for them to be able to comprehend its spell.... But regarding
their own ambitions to do, they became eloquent.

"I say," hesitated Haviland, "why is it I can't get in with most of
the fellows at the camp the way you can? I've always been chummy
enough with the fellows at the Point and at posts."

"Because you've been brought up to be afraid to be anything but a
gentleman."

"Oh, I don't think it's that. I can get fond as the deuce of some of
the commonest common soldiers--and, Lord! some of them come from the
Bowery and all sorts of impossible places."

"Yes, but you always think of them as 'common.' They don't think of
each other that way. Suppose I'd worked----Well, just suppose I'd been
a Bowery bartender. Could you be loafing around here with me? Could
you go off on a bat with Jack Ryan?"

"Well, maybe not. Maybe working with Jack Ryan is a good thing for me.
I'm getting now so I can almost stand his stories! I envy you,
knocking around with all sorts of people. Oh, I _wish_ I could call
Ryan 'Jack' and feel easy about it. I can't. Perhaps I've got a little
of the subaltern snob some place in me."

"You? You're a prince."

"If you've elevated me to a princedom, the least I can do is to invite
you down home for a week-end--down to the San Spirito Presidio. My
father's commandant there."

"Oh, I'd like to, but----I haven't got a dress-suit."

"Buy one."