em, but somehow he could not
drive himself to follow it up. He could only digest a limited amount of
humble pie at a time and had already swallowed nearly all he could stand.
Still he skirted warily along the edge of the dilemma.

"I suppose you think I made an awful ass of myself at college this year,"
he averred gloomily.

"I don't think it. I know it." The doctor's eyes twinkled a little. Then
he grew sober. "Why do you, Ted? You aren't really an ass, you know. If
you were, there might be some excuse for behaving like one."

Ted flushed.

"That's what Larry told me last spring when he was pitching into me
about--well about something. I don't know why I do, Uncle Phil, honest I
don't. Maybe it is because I hate college so and all the stale old stuff
they try to cram down our throats. I get so mad and sick and disgusted
with the whole thing that I feel as if I had to do something to offset
it--something that is real and live, even if it isn't according to rules
and regulations. I hate rules and regulations. I'm not a mummy and I
don't want to be made to act as if I were. I'll be a long time dead and I
want to get a whole lot of fun out of life first. I hate studying. I want
to do things, Uncle Phil--"

"Well?"

"I don't want to go back to college."

"What do you want to do?"

"Join the Canadian forces. It makes me sick to have a war going on and
me not in it. Dad quit college for West Point and everybody thought it
was all right. I don't see why I shouldn't get into it. I wouldn't fall
down on that. I promise you. I'd make you proud of me instead of ashamed
the way you are now." The boy's voice and eyes were unusually earnest.

His uncle did not answer instantly. He knew that there was some truth in
his nephew's analysis of the situation. It was his uneasy, superabundant
energy and craving for action that made him find the more or less
restricted life of the college, a burden, a bore and an exasperation, and
drove him to crazy escapades and deeds of flagrant lawlessness. He needed
no assurance that the boy would not "fall down" at soldiering. He would
take to it as a duck to water. And the discipline might be the making of
him, prove the way to exorcise the devil. Still there were other
considerations which to him seemed paramount for the time at least.

"I understand how you feel, Ted," he said at last. "If we get into the
war ourselves I won't say a word against your going. I should expect you
to go. We a