r, then he laid it on the table and looked up at
Pen. There was a troubled expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, Butler," he said, "but I'm afraid we can't enlist you."

The announcement came as a shock, but not utterly as a surprise. For
days the boy had felt a kind of foreboding that something of this sort
would happen. Yet he did not at once give way to his disappointment
nor accept without question the captain's pronouncement.

"May I inquire," he asked, "what your reason is for rejecting me?"

Captain Perry sat back in his chair and thrust his legs under the
table. It was apparent that he was embarrassed, but it was apparent
also that he would remain firm in the matter of his decision. Nor was
Pen at such a loss to understand the reason for his rejection as his
question might imply. He knew, instinctively, that the old story of
his disloyalty to the flag had come up again, after all these years,
to plague and to thwart him. He was quite right.

"I will tell you frankly, Butler," replied the captain, "what the
trouble is. Since it became known that you wanted to enlist, some
members of my company have come to me with a protest against
accepting you. They say they represent the bulk of sentiment among the
enlisted men. You see, under these circumstances, I can't very well
take you. We are citizen soldiers, not under the iron discipline of
the regular army, and in matters which are really not essential I must
yield more or less to the wishes of my boys. They like, in a way, to
choose their associates."

He ended with an apologetic wave of the hand, and a smile intended to
be conciliatory. Chagrined and wounded, but not abashed nor silenced,
Pen stood his ground. He resolved to see the thing through, cost what
pain and humiliation it might.

"Would you mind telling me," he inquired, "what it is they have
against me?"

"Why, if you want to know, yes. They say you're not patriotic. To be
more explicit they say that up at Chestnut Hill, where you used to
live, you--"

Pen interrupted him. His patience was exhausted, his calmness gone.
"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, "I know. They say I mistreated the flag. They
say I insulted it, threw it into the mud and trampled on it. That's
what they say, isn't it?"

"Yes, substantially that. Now, I don't know whether it's true or
not--"

"Oh, it's true enough! I don't deny it. And they say also that on
account of it all I had to leave Colonel Butler's house and go and
live wit