. "If you give him the limit of the law, why, he
becomes a martyr to persecution. I should say that his remarks might
pass for barrack-room gassing."

"Very well," said the colonel, taking the shortest way out of the
difficulty. "We will excuse the first offence."

"Yes, sir!" said the sergeant mechanically as he released his grip of
the offender. "We had two anarchists in my company in Africa," he
observed in loyal agreement with orders. "They fought like devils. The
only trouble was to keep them from shooting innocent natives for sport."

Stransky's collar was still crumpled on the nape of his neck. He
remained stock-still, staring down the bridge of his nose. For a full
minute he did not vouchsafe so much as a glance upward over the change
in his fortunes. Then he looked around at Lanstron gloweringly.

"I know who you are!" he said. "You were born to the purple. You have
had education, opportunity, position--everything that you and your kind
want to keep for your kind. You are smarter than the others. You would
hang a man with spider-webs instead of hemp. But I won't fight for you!
No, I won't!"

He threw back his head with a determination in his defiance so intense
that it had a certain kind of dignity that freed it of theatrical
affectation.

"Yes, I was fortunate; but perhaps nature was not altogether unkind to
you," said Lanstron. "In Napoleonic times, Stransky, I think you might
even have carried a marshal's baton in your knapsack."

"You--what rot!" A sort of triumph played around Stransky's full lips
and his jaw shot out challengingly. "No, never against my comrades on
the other side of the border!" he concluded, his dogged stare returning.

Now the colonel gave the order to fall in; the bugle sounded and the
centipede's legs began to assemble on the road. But Stransky remained a
statue, his rifle untouched on the sward. He seemed of a mind to let the
regiment go on without him.

"Stransky, fall in!" called the sergeant.

Still Stransky did not move. A comrade picked up the rifle and fairly
thrust it into his hands.

"Come on, Bert, and knead dough with the rest of us!" he whispered.
"Come on! Cheer up!" Evidently his comrades liked Stransky.

"No!" roared Stransky, bringing the rifle down on the ground with a
heavy blow.

Then impulse broke through the restraint that seemed to characterize the
Lanstron of thirty-five. The Lanstron of twenty-five, who had met
catastrophe because he was "wool-g