the table, he turned back pages
to go over them again. Every sentence dropped home in his mind like a
bolt in a socket.

When he had finished the manuscript the trance of his thoughts held him
in the same attitude. "Five millions to our three!" a voice kept
repeating to him. "In face of that this dream!" another voice was
saying. Had it been right to intrust such responsibility to one man of
Partow's age and right to transfer that responsibility to himself in an
emergency? Yet how clear the plan in the confidence of its wisdom!
Unconscious of the passage of time, he did not hear the door open or
realize Partow's presence until he felt Partow's hand on his shoulder.

"I see that you didn't look into any of the pigeonholes," the chief of
staff observed.

Lanstron pressed his finger-tips on the manuscript significantly.

"No. It is all there!"

"The thing being to carry it out!" said Partow. "God with us!" he added
devoutly.

XV

CLOSE TO THE WHITE POSTS

Have you forgotten Hugo Mallin, humorist of Company B of the 128th
Regiment of the Grays, whom we left in their barracks under orders for
South La Tir on the afternoon that Westerling called on Marta Galland?
Have you forgotten Eugene Aronson, the farmer's son, and Jacob Pilzer,
the butcher's son, and pasty-faced little Peterkin, the valet's son, and
the judge's son, and the other privates of the group that surrounded
Hugo Mallin as he aired heresies that set them laughing?

Through the press, an unconscious instrument of his purpose, the astute
premier has inoculated them with the virus of militant patriotism. Day
by day the crisis has become more acute; day by day the war fever has
risen in their veins. Big Eugene Aronson believes everything he reads;
his country can do no wrong. Jacob Pilzer is most bellicose; he chafes
at inaction, while they all suffer the discomforts of an empty factory
building in the rear of South La Tir which has become a temporary
barracks.

On Tuesday they hear of crowds around the Foreign Office demanding war,
on Wednesday of panics on the stock exchanges, on Thursday of
mobilization actually begun and a rigid press censorship established,
and on Friday other regiments and guns and horses are detraining and
departing right and left. Hurrying officers know nothing except what
they have been told to do.

"When do we start? What are we waiting for?" demanded Pilzer. "I want to
be in the thick of the fighting and not traili