hat I cannot write than to my sickness. I'm done
for!"

Manly looked at his friend and scowled.

"Rot!" he ejaculated. Then added: "The world would not perish if you
didn't write again."

"I'm not thinking about the world," Northrup was intent upon the fire,
"it's how the fact is affecting me. The world can accept or decline,
but I am made helpless. You see my work is the only real, vital thing
I have clawed out of life, by my own efforts, Manly; that means a lot
to a fellow."

Manly continued to scowl. Had Northrup been watching him he might have
gained encouragement, for Manly's scowls were proof of his deeply
moved sympathies.

"The trouble with you, old man," he presently said, "is this: You've
been dangerously ill; you thought you were going to slip out, and so
did I, and all the others. You're like the man who fell on the
battlefield and thought his legs were shot off. You've got to get up
and learn to walk again. We're all suggesting the wrong thing to you.
Go where people don't know, don't care a damn for you. Take to the
road. That ink-slinging self that you are hankering after is just
ahead. You'll overtake it, but it will never turn back for you--the
self that you are now."

Manly fidgeted. He hated to talk. Then Northrup said something that
brought Manly to his feet--and to several minutes of restless striding
about the room.

"Manly, while I was at my worst I couldn't tell whether it was
delirium or sanity, I saw that Thing across the water, the Thing that
for lack of a better name we call war, in quite a new light. It's what
has got us all and is shaking us into consciousness. We're going to
know the true from the false when this passes. My God! Manly, I wonder
if any of us know what is true and what isn't? Ideals, nations,
folks!"

Northrup's face flushed.

"See here, old man," Manly paused, set his legs wide apart as if to
balance himself and pointed a finger at Northrup, "You've got to cut
all this out and--beat it! Whatever that damned thing is over there,
it isn't our mess. It's the eruption of a volcano that's been bubbling
and sizzling for years. The lava's flowing now, a hot black filth, but
it's going to stop before it reaches us."

"I wonder, Manly, I wonder. It's more like a divining rod to me,
finding souls."

"Very well. Now I'm going to put an ugly fact up to you, Northrup.
Your body is all right, but your nerves are frayed and unless you mind
your step you're going to go dip