e of hostility was gathering around Hugo.
In face of it a smile began playing about the corners of his lips. The
smile spread. For the first time he was laughing, while all the others
were serious. Suddenly he threw his arms around the necks of the men
next to him.

"Why, to be with all you good fellows, of course!" he said, "and to
complete my education. If I hadn't taken my period in the army, you
might have shaved me, Eduardo; you might have fixed a horseshoe for me,
Henry; you might have sold me turnips, Eugene, but I shouldn't have
known you. Now we all know one another by eating the same food, wearing
the same clothes, marching side by side, and submitting to another kind
of discipline than that of our officers--the discipline of close
association in a community of service. There's hope for humanity in
that--for humanity trying to free itself of its fetters. We have mixed
with the people of the capital. They have found us and we have found
them to be of the same human family."

"That's so! This business of moving regiments about from one garrison to
another is a good cure for provincialism," said the doctor's son.

"Judge's son or banker's son or blacksmith's son, whenever we meet in
after-life there will be a thought of fellowship exchanged in our
glances," Hugo continued. "Haven't we got something that we couldn't get
otherwise? Doesn't it thrill you now when we're all tired from the march
except leviathan Gene--thrill you with a warm glow from the flow of
good, rich, healthy red blood?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

There was a chorus of assent. Banker's son clapped valet's son on the
shoulder; laborer's son and doctor's son locked arms and teetered on the
edge of the cot together.

"And I've another idea," proceeded Hugo very seriously as the vows of
eternal friendship subsided. "It is one to spread education and the
spirit of comradeship still further. Instead of two sets of autumn
manoeuvres, one on either side of the frontier, I'd have our army and
the Browns hold a manoeuvre together--this year on their side and next
year on ours."

The biggest roar yet rose from throats that had been venting a tender
tone. Only the slow Eugene Aronson was blank and puzzled. But directly
he, too, broke into laughter, louder and more prolonged than the others.

"You can be so solemn that it takes a minute to see your joke," he said.

"And humorous when we expect him to be solemn--and, presto, there he
goes!" added the judge