service can be for a cause
only when it is active."

"Yes, Japan is at peace with the world--now!" The voice came sharply,
almost sibilantly, with the aspirates of the race. "I am authorized to
state to you that service with our high command will none the less be
active--and before many months have passed. I am further authorized to
state to you that the foe will be a traditional enemy of Great Britain:
that our interests will run parallel with those of the British
Empire--If you take service under the Sun flag, Excellency, it will be
against foes of the Cross of St. George."

The two Japanese stood very erect, their beady eyes keenly agleam.
Slowly, and subconsciously, Victor McCalloway too drew his shoulders
back, as though he were reviewing a division. He was hearing the
Russo-Japanese War forecast weeks before it burst like shrapnel on an
astonished world.

"Gentlemen," he said gravely, "you must grant me leisure for thought.
This is a most serious matter."

A half hour later, with cigars glowing, the guests from Japan and the
guests from Louisville sat about the hearth, but on none of the faces
was there any trace of the unusual or of a knowledge of great secrets.

In all truth, Mahomet had come to the mountain.

* * * * *

Boone had not long returned from his Christmas vacation. So when he came
into his dormitory room from his classes one afternoon and found his
patron awaiting him there with a grave face, he was somewhat mystified,
until with a soldier's precision McCalloway came to his point.

"My boy," he said, "I have come here to have a very serious talk with
you."

Boone's face, which had flushed into pleasurable surprise at the sight
of his visitor, fell at the gravity of the voice. He guessed at once
that this was the preface to such an announcement as he always dreaded
in secret, and his own words came heavily.

"I reckon you mean--that you aim to--go away."

"I aim to talk to you about going away."

Boone rallied his sinking spirits as he announced with a creditable
counterfeit of cheerfulness, "All right, sir; I'm listening."

For a while the older man talked on. He was sitting in the plain room of
the dormitory--and his gaze was fixed off across the snow-patched
grounds, and the scattered buildings of the university.

He did not often look at the boy, who had grown into his heart so deeply
that the idea of a parting carried a barb for both. He thought th