he walked home through the shifting moonlight.

"That was young Graham, in whom you were so interested this morning,"
said Hazzard, briefly.

"_Was_ it? Oh, I thought he'd gone with the graduates."

"Only down to the city to say good-bye. He came back to his mother by
late train. I fancy she's more to him than a lot of fun with the boys."

"See here, Hazzard," observed Bonner, solemnly, "I've been looking into
things here nigh onto a week. It's fine! It's all right for a soldier
school! But, now take that young chap for a sample. What on earth does
he know outside of drill and mathematics and what you call discipline?
What could he do in case we cut off all this--this foolishness--and
came down to business? I'd be willing to bet a sweet sum that, take him
out of the army, turn him loose in the streets, and he'd starve, by
gad! before he could ever earn enough to pay for a quick lunch."

"I think you'd lose," was the quiet answer.

"Well, I'd just like to try it. Pit him and his kind against our
keen-witted, sharp, aggressive young _bus_iness men--men with
_bus_iness heads, _bus_iness experience"--Bonner's emphasis on the
first syllable was reinforced by a bang of the fist on the arm of his
chair--"and, and, by gad! they'd be skinned alive--skinned out of their
last cent, sir."

"That," said the colonel, dryly, "is not improbable. They are trained
as soldiers, not as sharpers. But, all the same, in spite, if you
please, of their soldier training, I fancy most of these lads that quit
us to-day, if brought face to face with sudden emergency,
responsibility, something calling for courage, coolness,
judgment--above all, for action--would hold their own, and I'd back
them even in competition with your aggressive young friends in business
life."

"Why, they're taught to deal only with soldiers--with machines--not
men," argued Bonner.

"Well, such as they have handled men not soldiers more than once, in
your own city, Bonner, and to your vast benefit. They'll come to it
again some day. As for that young man, I picked him a year ago from his
whole class for the place that calls for the most judgment, tact, quiet
force, capacity to command--the 'first captaincy'--and never did I see
it better filled."

"Oh, granted as to that! But strip off the uniform, sword, and
authority; set him among the men _we_ have to deal with--what could he
do with a railway strike? How could he handle maddened mill operatives,
laborers, sw