ll ex-fighters. Life, once filled with daring and adventure,
has become stale, flat, and unprofitable. The dull routine of business
and of social life is Dead Sea fruit to our lips--dust and ashes. It
cannot hold or entertain us.

"By this I do not mean that war is good, or peace bad. For the vast
majority of men, peace is normal and right. But there must be always
a small minority that cannot tolerate ennui; that must seek risks and
daring exploits; that would rather lay down their lives, today, in
some man-sized exploit, than live twenty-five years longer in the dull
security of a humdrum rut.

"Such men have always existed and probably always will. We are all,
I believe, of that type. Therefore you will all understand me. I will
understand you. And each of you will understand the rest.

"Major Bohannan and I have chosen you and have invited you here
because we believe every man in this room is precisely the kind of
man I have been defining. We believe you are like ourselves, dying
of boredom, eager for adventure; and willing to undergo military
discipline, swear secrecy, pledge honor and risk life itself, provided
the adventure be daring enough, the reward promising enough. If there
is anyone here present who is unwilling to subscribe to what I have
said, so far, let him withdraw."

No one stirred. But a murmur arose, eager, delighted:

"Go on! Go on--tell us more!"

"Absolute obedience to me is to be the first rule," continued the
Master. "The second is to be sobriety. There shall be no drinking,
carousing, or gambling. This is not to be a vulgar, swashbuckling,
privateering revel, but--"

A slight disturbance at the door interrupted him. He frowned, and
rapped on the table, for silence. The disturbance, however, continued.
Someone was trying to enter there against Rrisa's protests.

"I did not bring you up, sir," the Arab was saying, in broken English.
"You cannot come in! How did you get here?"

"I'm not in the habit of giving explanations to subordinates, or
of bandying words with them," replied the man, in a clear, rather
high-pitched but very determined voice. The company, gazing at him,
saw a slight, well-knit figure of middle height or a little less,
in aviator's togs. "I'm here to see your master, my good fellow, not
you!"

The man at the head of the table raised a finger to his lips, in
signal of silence from them all, and beckoned the Arab.

"Let him come in!" he ordered, in Rrisa's vernacula