ho believed theirs to be the true gentleman's profession, he had preferred any kind of mechanical toy to arranging the most gayly painted tin soldiers in formation on th

ellency in order to ask questions of a man wiping the oil off his hands with cotton-waste

p a correspondence after his father had been transferred to another post. He was given to magic lanterns, private telegraph and telephone lines, trying to walk a tight rope, and parachute acts and experiments in chemistry. When the family were not worried lest he should break his neck or blow his head off investigating, they

singed off his eyebrows. This may explain why he had to cram hard in the dead languages at times, with a towel tied around his head. He complained that they were out of date; and he wanted to hear the Ga

r having passed through the stages of engine-driver, telegraph operator, railroad-signal watchman, automobile manufacturer, and superintendent o

to go into the

when the boy had to give his reasons he

u manufacture something, why, you see wool come out cloth, steel come out an automobile. If you build a bridge you see it rising little by little. You're getting your results every day; you see your mistakes

s an old friend of the Lanstron family. It was not in Partow's mind to lose such a recruit in a time when the heads of the army were trying, in a

esults may be made in a single hour's action. There is nothing you have learned or ever will learn that may not be of service to you. There is no invention, no form of industrial organization that must not be included in the greatest organization of all, whose plant and methods must be up to date in every particular. To be backward in a sing

ed in practice the truth of Partow's saying that there was nothing he had ever learned but what could be of service to him as an officer. What the acrobats had taught him probably saved his life on the

th chief of intelligence and chief aerostatic officer. Young Colonel Lanstron's was the duty of gaining the secrets of

nks to skilful surgery working ingeniously with splintered bone and pulpy flesh, there was nothing unpleasant to the eye in a stiffened wrist and scarred knuckles slightly misshapen. The finger

the staff map, ravines, roads, buildings, battery positions, was stitched together in the flowing reality of actual vision.

been on such a day as this when there would be no danger, that he had taken her for her first flight. The glimpses, as they flew, of her profile, so alive and tense, were f

ke seeing the life of a family through a glass roof-the big, unive

the subl

food, comfort, happiness, and progress! Little details of difference disappeare

remely ridic

itted astride a metal horse of the kind that comes to children at Christmas time. They might better be engaged in brass-ring-snatching contests at the merry-go-rounds of public fairs. I wanted to brush them all over with a wave of the hand as

was absent on her journey around the world they had corresponded. Her letters, so revealing of herself and her peculiar angles of observation, formed a bundle sacredly preserved

real accomplishment in that! What an easy time a bridge-builder had, comparatively, too! What an easy master capital must be compared to Eugene Partow! But no! If Marta loved it would not matter whether he were brid

ng he would conceal from others no matter how conscious he was of it himself. He found the Galland veranda deserted. In response to his ring a maid came to the open door. Her face was sad, with a beauty that had prematurely faded. But it lighted pleasurably i

been inclined to send the maid to an institution, "where they will take good care of her, my dear. That's wh

ched her

ow!" she exc

et alone saying it -you, a Galland

a. "At all events, we have no precedent

"Let her begin afresh in the city. We shall give her a good recommendation, for she

to go, and it would be

k I would be cruel? Oh, very we

y minute, but Miss Galland will be later because of her ch

had nestled against the mother's skirts its owner, reminded of the importance of manners in the world where the stork ha

hirruped Clarissa Eileen. It was evide

u say your name

hould make that old request. Now she enunciated it with every vowel and consonant correctly

dered how you came to give it

s head and a madonna-like radiance stole into her face-"because she might at least have a beautiful name when"-the dull blaze of a recollection now burning in her

ape-vines lay against the background of a mat of ivy on the ancient stone walls, which had been cut away from the loopholes set with window-glass. The door was open, showing a room that had been closed in by a ceiling

softly. "Hello!" he cal

ually came from town by that way. At length the sound of a slow step from another direction broke on his car. Some one was approaching along the path that ran at his feet. Around the corner of the wall, in his workman's Sunday clothes of black,

o form a barrier between their eyes. His face was singularly expressionless. It seemed withered, clayish, like the walls of a furnace in which the fire has died o

tron exclaimed

er a branch of the rose-bush. He seemed unw

man in his Sunday best

in his voice, "I hear very well-at times. Tell me"-his whisper

we have ever been in our

ace, his stoop was unchanged, b

d. "Oh, the chance of

which concealed his hand gave a nervous twitch as if it held something alive and

t grow weary of the garden and the isolation as long as there is hope. But being deaf, always deaf, and yet hearing

was yours, you know, G

r lips at me while I pretended to study them in a dumb effort to understand. Actors have two hours of it an evening, and an occasional change of parts

s inhuman, old boy! You shan't stay another day!

nd attractively young in its frame of prematurely white hair. The stoop was wholly gone. He was tall now, his eyes sparkling with wild, happy lights and the soles of the heavy workman's shoes unconsciously drawn together in a milit

inna-some one m

to study the branch as before. Lanstron dropped back to his seat and gazed at the brow

ut you wanted to try-you chose," said

ied doggedly. "Because you say you didn't think I'd stick it out-

agreed. "A victor

f rifle-fire down there by the white posts! How often

in frank protest. "And, for God's s

is," and Feller raised his head heavily, in a way that seemed to

Gallan

a passion with her, too-and all the while, in face of the honesty of those big eyes of hers and of her gentle old mother's confidence,

tave? I will find so

go! I mean to be game-I-" He shifted his gaze dismally from the bush which he s

ooking from right to left for weeds. Then pausing, he glance

y on Sundays! And deafness has its compensations. Think if I had to listen to all the stories of my table companion, Peter, the

thout seeing him, she paused before one of the urns of hydrangeas in full bloom that flanked the third terrace wall, and, as if she would encompass and plunge her spirit into their abundant beauty, she spread out her arms and drew

called as she saw him,

agogue!" he

ir arms back and forth like a pair

we scored off you soldiers! You'll find disarmament already in progress when you return to headquarters

t on your

flicked her handkerchief from her belt and passed

he task with d

on your hair; but I'll leave it on your hair; it

y hair

I always o

r as they started up to the house. "But a habit of friendship, a habit of liking to believe

t now, Mart

is. The pain and indignation in her eyes came not from the sheer hurt of a wound but from the hurt of its sour

ering a grim sort of fellowship. "A big bone! If you'r

ered more patheticall

is taking her nap," she concluded as they came to