er a debate that the boys began to call him
"Bonaparte." He had defended the Little Corporal, and in defending him
had personified him. With that dark lock over his forehead, his arms
folded, he had flung defiance to the deputies, and for that moment he
had been not Tom Randolph but the Emperor himself.

He won the debate, amid much acclaim, and when he came down to us I will
confess to a feeling, which I think the others shared, of a soul within
his body which did not belong there. Tom Randolph was, of course, Tom
Randolph, but the voice which had spoken to us had rung with the power
of that other voice which had been stilled at St. Helena!

The days that followed dispelled the illusion, but the name clung to
him. I think he liked it, and emphasized the resemblance. He let his
hair grow long, sunk his head between his shoulders, was quick and
imperious in his speech.

Then came the war. Belgium devastated, France invaded. Randolph was
fired at once.

"I'm going over."

"But, my dear fellow--"

"There's our debt to Lafayette."

With his mind made up there was no moving him. The rest of us held back.
Our imaginations did not grasp at once the world's need of us.

But Randolph saw himself a Henry of Navarre--_white plumes_; a Richard
of the Lion Heart--_crusades and red crosses_; a Cyrano without the
nose--"_These be cadets of Gascony_--"

"You see, MacDonald," he said, flaming, "we Randolphs have always done
it."

"Done what?"

"Fought. There's been a Randolph in every war over here, and before that
in a long line of battles--"

He told me a great deal about the ancient Randolphs, and the way they
had fought on caparisoned steeds with lances.

"War to-day is different," I warned him. "Not so pictorial."

But I knew even then that he would make it pictorial. He would wear his
khaki like chain armor.

He gave us a farewell feast in his room. It was the season for young
squirrels, and he made us a Brunswick stew. It was the best thing I had
ever tasted, with red peppers in it and onions, and he served it with
an old silver ladle which he had brought from home.

While we ate he talked of war, of why men should fight--"for your own
honor and your country's."

There were pacifists among us and they challenged him. He flung them
off; their protests died before his passion.

"We are men, not varlets!"

Nobody laughed at him. It showed his power over us that none of us
laughed. We simply sat there and li