Tar and feathers
Date: 2024-05-30T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: African Americans -- Fiction; Southern States -- Fiction; Race relations -- Fiction; Racism -- Fiction; Ku Klux Klan (19th century) -- Fiction

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Title: Tar and feathers

An entrancing post-war romance in which the Ku Klux Klan, its principles and activities figure prominently, based on fact

Author: Victor Rubin

Release date: May 30, 2024 [eBook #73731]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Universal Press, 1923

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73731

Credits: Tim Lindell, Carol Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TAR AND FEATHERS ***

TAR AND FEATHERS

TAR AND FEATHERS

An Entrancing Post-War Romance
in which the

KU KLUX KLAN

Its Principles and Activities
Figure Prominently

Based on Fact

By VICTOR RUBIN

THIRD EDITION

1924
UNIVERSAL PRESS
409, 163 Washington Street
Chicago, Ill.

COPYRIGHT 1923 BY VICTOR RUBIN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Craftsmen Printers, Chicago

FOREWORD

Let us reason together. What proof have we that the people of one race are better or to be considered with favor above those of another?

It is true there was a time when the word “stranger” or its equivalent in other languages than the English had the same meaning as enemy. Each savage tribe, the early ancestors of all civilized peoples, for want of knowledge and experience, considered all other tribes enemies, and even as civilization grew and boundaries began to be established an imaginary line made enemies of those dwelling on opposite sides of rivers and channels. With more reason, seas came to be recognized as territorial limitations, and it has required centuries to break down notions of enmity and antagonism between dwellers of different localities. Indeed, it can hardly be contended that this spirit of enmity and antagonism has been overcome, when we see not only peoples of different countries, but those of a common citizenship harboring animosities sometimes approaching the malignant, and giving expression both in speech and action to their hatred for those who differ from them in race or color or creed.

Victor Rubin in the following pages deals with this question of racial and religious antagonism in a fascinating but most effective manner. Perhaps no one will be able to speak more impressively of Mr. Rubin’s book “Tar and Feathers” and at the same time give an intimation of its contents than has the great scholar and traveler, Israel Zangwill:

“Mr. Victor Rubin, with the courage of youth, faces in his first novel the full blast of the actual. What Mr. C. E. Montague’s fine book, Disenchantment, expresses for the British soldier, Mr. Rubin’s Tar and Feathers expresses for the American. All America—of all creeds and races—went to the great war as one man, as depicted in Tar and Feathers. The young Southerner, Hamilton, has actually been dragged from death on the battlefield by a negro and brought back to life and health by a Jewish surgeon. Yet the cannon have scarcely cooled before the old racial and religious prejudices reassert themselves. They resurge even in Hamilton, who cannot bear to touch the colored hand of his saviour. It is his struggle with them, and his final mastery over them, that constitutes the theme of Mr. Rubin’s novel. When Hamilton goes back to his narrow Southern home, he even under the pressure of the milieu becomes a paid agent of the Ku Klux Klan with its crusade against Catholics, Jews and Negroes.” (Mr. Rubin prudently calls it the “Trick, Track Tribe.”)

That the book possesses a broad appeal is indicated by many other commendations of able readers as expressed in scores of periodicals, a few of which we quote:

“A cogent, common-sense appeal for liberality of view, for a realization that all humanity is intrinsically similar, that the great teachers of mankind all breathed love and unity ... a book which any man concerned with the interesting presentment of truth would do well to read.”—William R. Langfeld in the Philadelphia Sunday Record.

“Mr. Rubin has succeeded in analyzing the psychological effects of the war upon those who participated in it as few writers have done. He has depicted the ethical and moral metamorphosis with commendable accuracy and understanding.”—Boston Transcript.

“Tar and Feathers is noteworthy in that it protests vigorously against prejudice of every variety and exposes the narrowness and the danger of organizations making for racial antagonism. The author writes with sincerity and conviction and is worth heeding if only for the vehemence with which he attacks the forces of snobbery and prejudice.”—New York Evening Post.

“While the armistice bells are ringing and a war-ridden people all over the world are shaking themselves loose from the habits of four long years, the novel opens in a crowded ward of the American hospital, Rue de Saint Jacques, Paris. Robert Hamilton, a rich and cultured American from Georgia; McCall from Chicago, in civilian life a reporter on the Times (incidentally of the Catholic faith); Dr. Levin, the great American surgeon, and Williams, a negro graduate of Harvard, are here introduced. Of course, there is also Meadows, the nurse—Dorothy Meadows, who played around with the social service crowd at Madison, and graduated there some time “before the war.” Back in Georgia is Margaret, a typical “home girl” in Corinth. These are the leading characters out of whose reactions Mr. Rubin has evolved a presentable story upon which to drape his theories.

“The scene shifts back to Corinth, where young Hamilton, is at once entangled in the affairs of the Ku Klux Klan, tho he doesn’t know in the least what it’s all about. Sent on a mission of propaganda to Chicago, Hamilton renews his friendship with McCall and Levin. The story of the part they play is a sermon to be hugged to the hearts of all 100 per cent Americans. Then, of course, there is Dorothy ... while back in Corinth is Margaret ... staying at home.

“Mr. Rubin makes adroit use of the Chicago race riots of 1919 and otherwise molds his men and his times into a tale which moves with rapidity and vigor.”—Margaret Evans in the Chicago Evening Post.

For ourselves, we have read nothing on the perennial subject of intolerance so much to the point and so well calculated to allay prejudice and make for good citizenship as “Tar and Feathers.”

THE PUBLISHERS.

Tar and Feathers

I

Monday, November 11, 1918, in Paris. A world suddenly gone mad. Shouting and dancing in the streets. Blaring of bands in the public squares. Booming of cannon along the Seine. Ringing of bells. Swirling masses of human beings along the boulevards and bridges and upon the steps of public buildings. Color. Autumn trees aflame with gold. Men and women blown about like autumn leaves. A sea of people, tossing sprays of color—red caps of officers, sky-blue uniforms, yellow hair of dancing women, ribbons, waving flags and banners. Spots of black—women in mourning, laughing and crying at once, singing through tears. Shouts of vive la France! Singing of the Marseillaise. Incoherent laughter and singing and cries, forming a rhythmic pattern like the pulsing of sea waves.

Peace at last. The world made safe for democracy—for France, for England, for Italy, for Belgium, for America—for the smallest nations of the earth—for white men, for yellow men, for black men.

At the Chamber of Deputies, Premier Clemenceau, faultlessly attired and gloved, tells the French people that the greatest war of all time has come to an end—Clemenceau, who nearly fifty years before as a member of this same assembly, voted against surrender to Germany. As his proud, clear voice rings out, the guns of victory roar a distant accompaniment. Wild applause greets his reading of the terms of the armistice, especially marked at those paragraphs dealing with the return of the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, the abandonment of submarine warfare, the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine.

For once there are no political factions in the Chamber. For once lefts, rights and centers applaud and cheer as one. Even the Socialists are among those to surround the Premier as he leaves the platform, and congratulate him. Some one begins the Marseillaise. Immediately applause, laughter and cheering are hushed. The Deputies stand erect and sing in unison the hymn of the French Republic. The vast crowd which has been thronging the galleries and corridors takes it up. It is carried to the hundreds massed on the stairs and perched on the railings. From group to group, as far as one can see, the song is carried along the current of exultant humanity. Men and women fox-trotting in the public squares and dancing in circles pause to sing. Then back to their dancing. Another circle farther on takes up the hymn. And so it goes, from the House of Deputies to the boulevards, and along the boulevards to the bridges. From the Bastille to the Madeleine, down Rue Royale to the great corral of captured German guns in the Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Elysées, on and on and on. It is Paris triumphant.

Other nations take up the Marseillaise, sing it and their national anthems—the Star-Spangled Banner, God Save the King.

British soldiers on leave begin a procession and go shouting and singing down the boulevard. Columns of Americans, French and Belgians follow their example. Women throw themselves into the arms of the marching soldiers, kiss them and are off again. At the Elysée Palace the procession halts just long enough to sing the national anthems of the allied nations, in succession, and marches on.

Crowded motor busses and other vehicles find every highway blocked, and the passengers dismount and join the throngs. Men and women who have never met before join hands, embrace, kiss, dance and sing. Every public square, the street before every outdoor café, the great hall of St. Lazarre station—yesterday the receiving station of the wounded—become dance halls.

On the steps of L’Opera a Scotch band is blaring. It is one of a hundred bands playing simultaneously.

There is a deluge of wine. Countless bottles are uncorked or impatiently cracked open at the cafés. Men and women dart down the streets brandishing bottles and sharing their contents with others. American soldiers forget the regulation against liquor.

They forget another regulation—General Order 40, forbidding colored men to talk to French women. The French have not learned to draw the color line. French midinettes and society women join hands with the colored men who have saved France, as freely as with the whites. An aristocratic Parisienne embraces an Alabama negro, while the latter grins good-naturedly, and the celebrators form a circle about the two.

“They’d sure lynch him for that,” sneers another Alabama soldier, white, with a scowl, as he leans tipsily against the railing of La Madeleine. It is the one note of discord in the otherwise perfect harmony of the moment.

“I say,” his voice rises petulantly, “they’d lynch him—” But the men in uniform about him are English, French, Italian. Can’t explain a thing like that to Tommies, Frog-eaters or Wops. Probably wouldn’t know what lynching meant anyway. And they treated niggers like white people.

But he forgets his resentment when a girl with dancing black eyes grasps his hand and that of one of his French colleagues and begins dancing down the street with them.

Out of the gathering twilight, stars of light suddenly flare—electric lights, search-lights, gas lights, lanterns. Paris, which has lived in darkness for four years, suddenly bursts into an orgy of colored lights—glitters like an enchanted city.

Into the city of lights and shadows, the sea of exultant humanity, they drift. They are part of the city, of the world suddenly grown mad with joy. Throughout France other men and women are celebrating like this. In England, in America, in Italy, in Belgium. Peace. Victory. The end of Tyranny. Freedom for all!

II

Of all this, Robert Hamilton, first lieutenant of infantry, was unaware.

In a crowded ward of the American hospital, on Rue de Saint Jacques, he was just emerging from ether. High explosive had shattered one of his ribs and had come within an ace of sending the jagged bone into his heart. A skilful surgeon had cut away bits of bone, substituted a plate of silver and stitched the skin back again. Of this also, Hamilton, of course, knew nothing. His last memory was of leading a wave toward a trench. Running ahead of the wave, running at a dog trot, with a rifle held at high port across his body, running through mud and shell holes, running into a grotesquely lighted night, with lights and rockets that screamed overhead and exaggerated every irregularity of the ground, that sent ghastly shadows staggering across the field and outlined the opposing trenches. Running, still running.

In the back of Hamilton’s brain something burned—a light, a flame, a pain, an idea. It was all that lived of that complex being—Hamilton. It was all that lived of his hopes and fears, his loves and prejudices, his habits and thoughts. A childhood in Corinth, a youth at prep school, four years of training at Harvard, generations of culture, all lay concentrated in a little feeble flame that was flickering, flickering.

The flame grew outward and shattered into other flames. The light expanded, throbbing. The pain grew sharper. Hamilton was beginning to think. Before he had simply been conscious of his existence.

Now he was running forward again through the grotesquely lighted field of battle. Running, running, with rockets and Verey lights and flames forming a pattern in his brain.

Then sounds throbbing through his consciousness—forming another pattern. Cries, shouts, the booming of cannon, the whirring of shells and unseen wings, singing.

Then his brain reeling around.

Flames searing his breast.

Hamilton’s eyes fluttered open to a white ceiling. He became aware of a sickeningly sweetish odor of ether. His eyes closed. He was back in the gray world, with its weird, screaming lights. Running, running. He was falling, with bayonets flashing out of the shadows and tearing at his chest.

“Get ’em! Get ’em! God! They got me. Sergeant!”

His eyes fluttered open again. Eyes were resting on his bewilderingly.

“What? Where am I?”

Soft hands were patting him.

“Where are you, sergeant? All right, bombers! Get ’em! Get ’em! Damn!”

Hamilton was conscious. The pain had concentrated in a single place in his chest. He saw a surgeon and a nurse in white bending over him. He knew that he was in a hospital. He heard the nurse’s low voice consoling him:

“You’re all right, now. A few days and you’ll be sitting up.”

The surgeon was giving her instructions. Then he was moving away to the next bed. Hamilton was noticing the long room, crowded with white beds and the orderlies hurrying about. Through the long row of tall windows the bright autumn sun was shining.

“What’s the noise?”

“The armistice’s been signed.”

“What?”

“The war’s over!” The nurse was patting his forehead.

“What? The war—over?” He was struggling vainly to get up, his will sending the blood into his emaciated muscles and tensing them. For a moment his eyes, glancing through the window to the world outside—saw the sea of frenzied men and women, dancing, singing, laughing, weeping, shouting. Then he sank back again to his pillow, suddenly white, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“War’s over! War’s over!” he repeated in a choked voice.

His brain whirled with emotions. Joy that the war was over, that danger and hardships were at an end, that he would be able to return home—home and Margaret. Somewhere was a faint shadow of regret that the war had not lasted long enough for him to have won his captaincy. His grandfather had been a captain in the Confederate army. Two ancestors had been captains in Washington’s army. Hamilton had been brought up in the fighting tradition and in the officer tradition. And he had been recommended for promotion by his battalion commander.

Hamilton’s eyes swept the room. Several of the other patients were standing at the windows, looking down upon the crowded streets. Others were sitting up in bed or in armchairs. The rest were lying back, like himself, evidently too ill to sit up. He turned his head and watched the faces. On the next bed lay a bundle of bandages. It was moving slowly. Hamilton watched fascinatedly. He caught a glimpse of his face, and turned even paler. Then his face flushed angrily.

“Nurse, nurse!” His voice rose shrilly. “There’s a skunk in here.”

“What?”

“A skunk! Look over there! In that next bed.”

With strength borne of rage, Hamilton half sat up and pointed a gaunt finger at the bandaged figure in the next bed.

“What’s that damn nigger doing here?”

Miss Meadows’ lips smiled, but there was an angry flash in her brown eyes.

“The negro ward was filled and—”

“Why didn’t you put him in the hall, in the basement, anywhere?”

The lips still smiled.

“And we thought you wouldn’t mind if we put him next to you because—”

Hamilton was silent with rage.

“Because he was the man who saved your life.”

III

When Dr. Levin returned later that day to change the dressing, he found Hamilton still asleep. He was also asleep the next day; but the third time, Dr. Levin found him awake, his dark eyes fluttering restlessly about the ward, like caged birds.

Hamilton, Dr. Levin decided, might be twenty-five or twenty-six, an athlete and a person of social position—analyzing people who came under his observation was one of the surgeon’s hobbies. Weeks of unconsciousness had left Hamilton pale and weak, but there was an appearance of strength in his restless eyes and firm, ambitious lips. His nose was slightly arched and the bridge at the highest point a trifle thick as though it had once been broken; his jaws broad, but tapering to a pointed cynical chin; his brow high and narrow; his eyebrows thick without being shaggy—one of them was scarred. A compromise between the intellectual and the physical, Levin thought. He might have made the Harvard football team or Phi Beta Kappa, depending on his inclinations.

As a matter of fact, Hamilton had not made Phi Beta Kappa, although he had come comfortably near it, and had made the football team—trying out for it only on the insistence of a physical training instructor after he had watched Hamilton for a few minutes on the wrestling mat.

Hamilton believed thoroughly in the old Greek ideal of a sound mind in a sound body, but he held no exaggerated idea of the importance of his ability to tuck a leather ball under his arm and hammer his way through a line of opposing men. He burned no incense at the altar of his egoism as he had seen so many other football heroes do and he expected no tribute. He enjoyed the game for its own sake—the nervous expectation, the united purpose to win, the quick strategy, the unexpected opposition, the physical clash, the tug and strain of muscles, the smell of keen autumn air and of blood and leather. But football was only a game—only part of his carefully planned scheme of education. It helped provide the sound body.

His studies were the studies that a gentleman of leisure of the old school might select for his son, with a few allowances for modern standards. He had pursued the study of Greek, for instance, only through Homer and of Latin through Horace. He had taken the minimum science requirement, a single year of physics, and had then gone in for contemporary literature and history. He had chosen French for his foreign language. These studies he had sprinkled with a few courses here and there in fine arts, psychology and philosophy. Some were admittedly cinch courses. He applied himself to these with reasonable zeal, without, at the same time, endangering his social position by being mistaken for a grind. He was giving himself a foundation not so much for the establishment of a career, but for the enjoyment of life.

As the son and heir of Robert E. Hamilton, owner of extensive cotton plantations, cotton mills and hardwood forests in Georgia, Robert, jr., had no particular need to establish a career, and, although literature attracted him, he preferred to enjoy rather than to try to produce it.

“There are too many writers already,” Hamilton would say. “What we need are more persons who can distinguish between good and bad writing. We need a larger dilettante class, for the sake of the writers themselves, and as I have no real inspiration I might as well belong to the dilettantes.”

This might have been either a streak of laziness or of candor. Or again it might have been only the result of his peculiar conception of aristocracy.

Hamilton was aristocratic as only a thorough Democrat can be—that is a Southern Democrat. And his ideas came by heredity. He believed, first, in the absolute supremacy of the white race, as distinguished from the colored races; second, of the Anglo-Saxon as distinguished from the rest of the Caucasian race; third, of the residents south of the Mason and Dixon line, as distinguished from the rest of the Anglo-Saxons; and fourth, of the Hamiltons. Although he no longer attended church regularly, he was a firm believer in God—a deity not unlike the oil paintings of the ancestral Hamilton, who had received the grant from Oglethorpe—only infinitely more powerful and grand. Hamilton’s God was a god of the cotton plantations and the mills, although Hamilton himself would have been the first person to deny it. His voice was heard in the thunder and His rain made the cotton plants to grow. His hand could be seen ruling the waters and turning the wheels of the cotton mills. His anger flashed in the lightning and was seen in the uprisings of white men to stamp out transgressions of His law.

Yet it was a just God and a beneficent one; for though it had been God who had created the different races and classes and who had destined some to rule and others to be ruled, He gave to all alike the beauty of sunsets and sunrises, of misty mountain peaks, of majestic expanses of ocean, of flowers and forests. And He allowed the rain to fall alike on the highest white man in His caste, and upon the lowliest black.

At college Hamilton’s conceptions had broadened sufficiently for him to admit that all of God’s people were not concentrated south of the Mason-Dixon line—though they might be more thickly settled there.

His first contact with theories of evolution advanced fifty years ago, but new to him, for a time threatened to shake his belief in the god of the clan, but eventually he absorbed the new teachings and catalogued them as part of the inscrutable plan, the mysterious ways in which God moved His wonders to perform.

All this sounds very ponderous for a young man at the threshold of life. As a matter of fact, these concepts played but a small part in his actual life. He was fond of outdoor sports, tennis and golf, had gone on several fishing trips in northern Maine with a Harvard chum, and was a fair horseman. He had belonged to an exclusive club at Harvard and held a membership in the best club in Corinth. He attended all the dances in his set, sometimes led a cotillion, flirted lightly with the belles, took them motoring, was the life of house-parties and had a reputation as one of the keenest hands at poker in Georgia.

He drank like a gentleman and had an utter contempt for anyone who couldn’t. Women liked him naturally, because he was tall and athletic, conversed interestingly and could make love—of the mock variety—delightfully. But he had never carried his mild philanderings to the dangerous stage—far less violated the code that holds a woman’s honor inviolate—in his own set.

Robert was preparing to succeed his father in the control of the Hamilton interests gradually. But neither father nor son had any illusions about the inherent value or nobility of learning the business from the bottom. Father and son planned that when the time came for the younger man to step into control that a competent staff should continue to attend to all the details of the Hamilton enterprises, leaving to the son only the outlining of broad policies. This arrangement would leave Hamilton free to live his own life, according to his own theories and untrammeled by business cares.

Hamilton was living in a New York apartment, learning the details of the distribution of cotton from the New York office, and incidentally learning how to pick a Follies girl from the first row, when the United States entered the World War. He immediately applied for a commission in the army and was accepted as an officer candidate at Plattsburg. Here his ideas of inherent aristocracy received a jolt. In the bunks adjoining his were a Jew who had worked his way through the College of the City of New York and had just entered the practice of law, and an Italian-American who had formerly been a mounted policeman in Pennsylvania. He found neither particularly greasy, as he might have expected. Near him were men of German, French, Norwegian and Southern European descent. Best of all, however, he liked William McCall, New York correspondent for a Chicago newspaper, a clever, whimsical sort of fellow of Robert’s own age—a dreamer and a holder of startling, but interesting, theories of art, poetry and life. He was a brother dilettante, with an added knack of doing things—besides.

McCall and Hamilton received second lieutenancies and were assigned to the same company in the New York division of the national army (the draft army). Here Hamilton’s ideas received another jolt, for men and officers represented every nation and creed. And here for the first time the idea of such phrases as “the melting pot” and “the army of democracy” began to sink into his consciousness.

His engagement to Margaret Forsyth had come quite suddenly and logically. Since childhood they had frequented the same circles. They had attended the same dances and receptions. They had played, as children, in each other’s homes, and made faces at each other across the same table. When Robert was eight and riding through the streets of Corinth on a white pony that caused all the children in sight to shout envious “ohs” and “ahs,” he formed the plan of eloping with Margaret. She agreed with alacrity. When they had reached the outskirts of the city, however, and Margaret discovered that it wasn’t a make-believe elopement, she began screaming so loudly that Robert was obliged to turn back. From that time on he pretended to have a supreme disdain for the opposite sex. In his fifteenth year, however, while home on a vacation from “prep” school, he had once more succumbed to feminine wiles—and intermittently thereafter.

The imminent departure of the troops for France, and to what perils no one could say, stimulated the dormant sentimentalism in Hamilton and, like half the young lieutenants in the division, he woke up one day to find himself engaged to Margaret, after she had come to camp with her mother to visit him.

Now, as his eyes moved restlessly about the room, as if looking for a means of escape, little incidents of his past life came popping out from unexpected hiding places in his brain. His mind had a trick of confusing two events—present and past—and he felt vaguely he had been in this ward before. Then he remembered the operation on his nose, after it had been broken in the Princeton game. It made him suddenly homesick.

“You’re looking fit to fight,” said Dr. Levin cheerfully, leaning over the bed and preparing to slip back the jacket of Hamilton’s pajamas so that he could get at the wound. “Just move your arm back a little—that’s the way. I suppose you know it’s all over now?”

Hamilton nodded.

“You don’t know what a close call you had, I’ll bet.” The surgeon deftly removed little strips of adhesive plaster.

“No,” Hamilton’s eyes were turned on the doctor. “Only this infernal wound hurts like the devil. Nurse said that—that nigger over there saved me.”

Dr. Levin turned around. The negro was asleep.

“Yes, he and a white officer picked you up near Chartreux Woods.”

“Chartreux Woods? How’d I get there? That wasn’t our objective, and anyway there weren’t any nigger troops around. Last thing I remember I was heading across no man’s land. Then something hit me.”

Hamilton scowled and noticed the quick skill with which Dr. Levin was tearing bits of porous plaster and sticking them on the edge of the bed, where they would be handy.

“I don’t know a thing about that,” said the surgeon, intent upon his work. “Now just a minute while I wash this. It won’t hurt. Did it? There now.” The dressing was complete.

“If your chest hurts too much have Meadows call me, but I think it will be all right.”

“Who’s Meadows?”

“That’s the little dark-haired nurse. They call each other by their last names and sometimes we do too.”

“I’ve noticed her,” Hamilton’s eyes suddenly wandered off into space. “Looks a lot like a girl I know back home.”

Dr. Levin smiled and patted Hamilton’s shoulder.

“You’ll be with that girl back home sooner than you think. Here, take this cigarette. A little smoking won’t hurt you.”

“I’m dying for a smoke,” said Hamilton, thrusting out a trembling hand. “It’s my first smoke in—What is the date?”

Dr. Levin told him.

“In six weeks! Six weeks! God!”

The surgeon was off to visit his other patients and, after a few puffs, Hamilton extinguished his cigarette and was ready to sink back into sleep.

IV

It was from Miss Meadows principally that Hamilton learned the details of his rescue. It was from her that he learned, for instance, that it was McCall who had helped the negro, Williams, to save his life. Where was McCall? Meadows would not tell, although she hinted that it was near-by. He guessed that it was in an adjoining ward and that she was afraid that if she told him how close, he would attempt to visit him before his full strength had returned. Meadows had heard part of the story from McCall himself and part she remembered from a newspaper account, although names of places and persons had been carefully deleted. There were other details that Dr. Levin supplied.

Apparently Hamilton had proceeded beyond his objective and fallen wounded at the edge of Chartreux Woods just before the enemy began to lay down a box barrage upon it. Hamilton wondered how he had got there. His last memory had been of advancing upon a line of trenches. Chartreux Woods lay beyond and to the left.

“Probably out of your head,” explained Dr. Levin. “You know there was a slight wound on your scalp. Probably a machine-gun bullet.”

“Must have been that,” agreed Hamilton. “Only an idiot would have done it otherwise.”

At any rate, it seemed, Hamilton had reached the last line of trenches assigned as his objective and, while his men were still mopping up, had blundered on. At the edge of the forest, weak from loss of blood, he had fallen.

It was there that McCall, whose company was lying entrenched opposite the wood, ready to advance when the signal should come, saw him the next morning, through the first gray of a drizzling dawn—the body of an American soldier lying in the open a few feet from the first row of trees and a hundred yards away. He did not know that it was Hamilton, only that it was a wounded American. How should he guess that it was Hamilton, who was supposed to be holding a position to the right and rear of his own?

And now McCall had let himself lightly over the top and was running swiftly through the mud toward his goal. Suddenly the barrage upon the forest broke and McCall flung himself to the ground. In a general way he knew that the lowness of the ground would probably shield him from observation, but to expose himself needlessly would be folly. He began to crawl forward slowly. He would continue this way for a few feet, then dive into a shell hole or behind a stump.

Across the narrow field high explosive shells were shattering the trees with thunderous roars. Projectiles screamed and whined overhead. Somewhere a machine gun chattered. A light drizzle was falling and all these sounds seemed like a thousand angry thunders following a thousand devastating lightnings. Once McCall threw himself into a puddle a second before a high explosive shell struck the earth a hundred yards away with a terrible crash that shook the earth and spattered rock, earth and metal as from a volcano’s mouth. McCall noticed with relief that Hamilton lay protected by the sweep of the terrain.

McCall doggedly kept on. As he reached his goal, he saw for the first time whom he was saving. Hamilton, his buddy! McCall quickly tied his emergency bandage around the wound in Hamilton’s chest, slid the prostrate form over his shoulder and started back. A trickle of blood which blinded his right eye told him that he had been wounded. But it was no time to quit and painfully, his wound throbbing with every step, he managed to stagger into a shell hole. Then everything turned black.

In the meantime Williams, in command of a detachment of pioneer troops assigned to McCall’s company, had been watching breathlessly from a fire step in the front-line trench. Now, when he saw McCall stagger into the shell hole, he was over the parapet in a flash and wriggling across the muddy, shell-torn ground like a snake. Half way across, a spent fragment of shell struck his head and dazed him. But he kept on, as in a trance, and reached the two white officers before his head cleared. McCall was recovering consciousness and Williams bound his wound. To his own wound he paid no attention. Then the two began their return to the American line, dragging and pushing the body of Hamilton between them.

Within the trenches all was excitement, and it was all that the lieutenant in charge of the company could do to keep every man in the front-line trench from swarming over the top.

“They’ll bring him back!” he shouted. “There’s no use any one else risking his life. Get down from the fire step and stay down if you value your lives!”

The lieutenant swore and prayed in turn. The men recklessly stuck their heads above the parapet and shouted words of encouragement, although they knew that their voices were no match for the thunder of the artillery.

“Come on now! Stick it out! Just a little longer! Come on!” Their voices pleaded.

Inch by inch, foot by foot, they were creeping. They had come within a few yards of the trench and the men were shouting themselves hoarse.

“Come on! You’re almost there! Stick it out!”

Suddenly there was a terrific explosion that sent showers of rock and mud into the trench and both Williams and McCall rolled over, the blood gushing from many wounds. Hamilton, between them, had been completely protected. This time there was no holding them. A half dozen whites and blacks were over the parapet and back again, bearing the three wounded officers.

“You’ll get court-martialed sure as hell for this!” yelled the lieutenant. Tears were in his eyes—“Or you’ll all get cited for bravery.”

He was right. The next morning they heard from the old man (the colonel). Every one of them, including McCall and Williams, had been cited for conspicuous bravery on the field of battle, over and above their line of duty, in rescuing the wounded.

V

Hamilton was sitting up in a wheelchair, watching Miss Meadows flutter about from one patient to another—raising or lowering a bed, adjusting a pillow, injecting morphine, sponging a patient’s back, bringing water—doing a hundred and one things. Hamilton admired her swift skill—the sureness with which she did everything, the expertness with which her capable fingers patted the bedclothes into position, the gentle strength of her finely molded arm when she lifted a man in bed or helped him to his chair, the dexterity with which she snipped off gauze and linen and converted them into dressing pads and bandages. Above all, her cheerfulness.

At six each morning she would come into the ward—in her familiar white sweater coat on the cooler days—and take temperatures. She carried scores of thermometers in a glass, it seemed, and as she moved from bed to bed she would shake them down with a dexterous twist of her wrist. Sometimes, on especially cold days, when her fingers were numb, a thermometer would slip from her grasp and shatter on the floor. But in spite of cold, and no matter how little she had slept the night before, she invariably smiled.

Meadows had a word and a nickname for everyone. Hamilton was a “Colonel,” because of his first outburst against having a negro in his ward, his Southern accent and his rather aristocratic cast of features.

“In a few more days, you’ll have a regular goatee, and then you will look like a colonel,” she used to tease him when he was still lying on his back, unable to shave.

The patients were all her boys and she mothered them in a delightfully impartial manner.

One of the men she maternally called “Sleepyhead,” because he was always asleep when time came for taking temperatures. Another was “Caruso,” because he snored (she called it singing) in his sleep.

“That was a most beautiful aria you rendered last night,” teased Meadows, “it sounded like the Awakening of the Lion from Hagenbeck.”

Then, as every one in the ward laughed, and before Caruso could reply, she thrust a thermometer between his lips. Caruso pretended to be in a great rage and in pantomime drew a knife and threatened her with it.

“How’s the Great Lover?” she asked another, who had come out of the ether revealing certain startling chapters of his amatory experiences. “The Hearst papers have got a reporter planted under your bed, so you had better be careful of what you say in your sleep. They’re running the first chapter of your memoirs, An Ethereal Affinity, tonight.”

“You know I have only one love,” mocked back the Great Lover, stretching out his arms.

“I wonder who that can be,” said Meadows and popped a thermometer into his mouth.

“Great Scott, nurse, I’m burning up!” cried a patient. Meadows snatched the thermometer from his hand to find the mercury near the top of the column. It was an old trick, however. The patient had held the end of a cigarette to the bulb.

“My, oh my!” Meadows shook her head, so that the brown curls straggled out from beneath her cap. “We’ll have to cut out the nicotine. No more cigarettes from now on, and you’ll see how soon your temperature goes back to normal!”

“Not one cigarette, nursey?” pleaded the practical joker.

“Not a chocolate cigarette—unless you share it with me!”

For each there was some bit of badinage that made the dreary days of convalescence pass all the more quickly. Even with the more serious cases, the officers whose jaws had been replaced with pieces of metal strung together by wire, the officers who had been blinded, the amputations—Meadows joked.

Hamilton was making comparisons. He wondered whether the girl to whom he had become engaged just before he left for France could have stood the gaff as well. Physically they were remarkably alike. They could easily pass for cousins, even sisters. They were both little women and both had a girlish animation. Both were dark, with wavy brown hair and large brown eyes. Eyes of a wild doe, Hamilton used to say of Margaret. Meadows might have been an inch taller and correspondingly heavier. But the same domed forehead, refined nose, bowed lips.

Hamilton wondered whether Margaret, so graceful on the dance floor, so competent in the drawing room, or at the dinner table, would be equally at home in a hospital ward. Could she have rubbed a man’s back with alcohol, or placed a drain in a gaping wound as successfully as she poured tea—do all these things with a smile? He wondered.

Meadows was approaching Hamilton’s wheelchair with a cup of steaming chocolate, and for a moment Hamilton had an acute longing to be back in the States, nearer Margaret.

“What’s the matter, Colonel, hasn’t she written?” the nurse smiled down upon him. “I’m quite sure I saw a letter for you in the office. Orderly’ll be up in a few minutes. Drink this chocolate. I made it myself.”

Hamilton took the cup and admitted that he was woefully homesick.

“Some day,” he gulped and blinked hard. “Jimminy, this stuff is hot!—some day I’d like to have you meet some one in Georgia—Corinth. A girl I know—my—some one I know real well. She looks a great deal like you, too. Same complexion and same way of smiling. Might be sisters.”

“No,” laughed Miss Meadows, shaking her head, “I haven’t a relative south of South Bend, Indiana. It’s just a stage of convalescence. When they reach it, all my boys,” she gave an expressive wave of her white arm, “tell me I remind them of some one. So you’d better look out or you’ll be mistaking me for her and telling me things meant only for her shell-like ears. Oh, such things have happened before!”

Meadows shook her forefinger saucily at the colonel and whisked away. Hamilton swallowed a burning gulp of chocolate and felt more homesick than ever.

Meadows was right. There was a letter for Hamilton—a letter which sent his heart thumping. It came in a square envelope, lined with colored tissue, addressed in large, round characters, in green ink and smelling faintly of musk. A dozen postmarks and forwarding addresses showed the course it had travelled. Hamilton had written Margaret that he would spend his leave in Paris, the last week in September, and she had addressed the letter in care of the American Club. When Hamilton failed to claim the missive, it had evidently been sent to headquarters. From there it had been forwarded to his regiment. The letter had followed the regiment from post to post, had finally caught up with it and been sent on to the field hospital. From there it had been sent to the American hospital on Rue de St. Jacques, Paris. Evidently Margaret was unaware that Hamilton had been wounded and had lain hovering between life and death for two months. Hamilton tore open the letter.

“Dearest Bobby boy,” it ran. “I know that some horrid censor will be snooping through this, so I can’t tell you how much I love you!

“I suppose you are in Paris now, enjoying your leave. Oh, how jealous I am of those notorious French beauties! I hear that they bob their hair, wear skirts up to their knees and smoke cigarettes. How shocking! But you’ll always be true to your little Margaret, won’t you?

“You don’t know how much we at home suffer! I don’t mean by going without wheat or meat or heat on certain days or without lights at night; nor even our untiring work on drives and committees and meetings. I mean the gap you have made in our lives that nothing can fill!

“Every one of us at home would give anything he could to join you on the firing line. I know I would, if I were a man. In the meantime I am ‘doing my bit’ by knitting Red Cross sweaters and preparing gauze. I am attending a class in hospitalization, so that I can help out in our local hospitals in case all the trained nurses are accepted for overseas duty.

“Papa is very proud of you. When he learned that you had been recommended for a captaincy, he said that he just knew that you had it in you, because you came from one of the best Southern families. Father has so much responsibility now, keeping the niggers at work. He says that his overseers are working day and night to keep up the production of cotton. Cotton is used in the soldiers’ uniforms and in making gun-cotton, so father really feels as though he’s doing his bit in fighting the Hun.

“Cousin George says he wishes he were in your shoes, but the local draft board has ruled that his services in editing a newspaper are indispensable, and of more value to the country than shouldering a rifle.

“Howard Pinkney—the man you were so jealous of—foolish boy!—still comes around and proposes regularly. But there’s no chance, is there, against my soldier boy? I hate these war profiteers, but papa says Howard is becoming a splendid business man and doing a real service to the nation by supplying the arsenals with walnut for rifle stocks. It seems that walnut is the best wood for that purpose, and at the beginning of the war Howard very thoughtfully managed to collect most of it in the South. He said that he would have liked to follow your example, but I suppose he is doing more by ‘carrying on’ right at home, seeing that the boys over there are supplied with rifle stocks.

“You see, everybody’s ‘doing his bit,’ one way or another. I think it is splendid! It’s the only way that our Anglo-Saxon supremacy can be maintained. Even at our dances and receptions the note is patriotic. We invite all the officers from the camps near-by and do our best to make them feel as if they had not been forgotten. We always end up with the Star-Spangled Banner and everyone stands up so straight and sings right from the heart!

“A few foreigners and radicals have given us some trouble by not subscribing their full quota of Liberty Bonds, and the committee of twenty-one has daubed their houses yellow. Some have even asked for higher wages, because the war has made prices go up so high. But they don’t realize their sacred duty to their country. There is talk about the negroes revolting. Some agitators have been at work amongst them. They’re demanding accountings and cash, or rather hinting at it. They wouldn’t dare demand it. It sounds like Bolshevism to dad! A Socialist came here to speak—but the committee rode him out of town on a rail before he could get a meeting and spread disregard for Americanism and the Constitution.

“Dad and George and Howard say that the old Ku Klux Klan ought to be revived to teach the negroes their place and keep the agitators and other carpetbaggers from invading the South.

“But I mustn’t bore you any more with this. I simply wanted to let you know how the war was affecting the South. Perhaps by this time the war will be over. I just know when the Americans get upon the field of battle they will show the rest of the Allies a thing or two about fighting.”

Hamilton turned from his reading and looked out of the window. The trees had turned gaunt and bare, heralds of the approaching winter. People were hurrying to and fro. Carriages carrying notables were dashing down the boulevards. Officers in brilliant uniforms were moving about the streets. Paris, following its first intoxication of victory, was going about the complicated business of determining the conditions of peace. Wilson’s fourteen points were being adroitly broken. New conceptions of international relations, the League of Nations, the autonomy of Montenegro—bizarre and pathetic national points of view—were being molded to suit the nations of the world. Pompous international tailors were cutting up the economic fabric of Europe, woven in the loom of the centuries, and trying to form coats to clothe a confusion of political and sentimental ideas of nationalism. Experts were laying out the patterns. No two agreed exactly.

Hamilton resumed his perusal of the activities of Corinth during the last phase of the war, the town gossip, the state of health of numerous individuals. He crushed the letter and leaned back against his pillow. Thoughtless, chattering, charming Margaret! If he could only crush her alluring girlishness to him, and be aware of her pretty babbling, without listening to it; simply nodding from time to time and putting in a few words!

His chest was hurting him a little. He was growing weak. It was the first time he had sat up for more than half an hour. Meadows noticed him sink back in his chair, quickly summoned two orderlies and had him lifted back in bed, her capable hands patting the pillow into a comfortable shape, and tucking in the blankets in a twinkling.

“Don’t swallow this, like Little Nemo over there,” she said. “He eats everything I give him—soup, thermometers, roast turkey, shaving soap—everything—a regular ostrich. Now let’s take your hand. Something exciting in that letter? What’s the matter with your pulse, colonel? Don’t worry, I’ll get you back to her in ten days, good as new—if I have to write my own prescriptions. Oh, it’s not so high for a man in love. Temperature normal.”

Meadows made a notation on his chart at the foot of the bed and then passed on to the next bed, and Hamilton had a sudden desire to seize her white hand and hold it.

VI

Hamilton was sitting at the window, his favorite position, watching the stream of people on the street below. He had walked up and down the room for perhaps five minutes—the first time in months—and was now resting. Little pains, like needles, were running up his limbs. His wound had entirely healed, leaving only a long, livid scar. Hamilton called the wound his barometer. He could foretell any change in the weather accurately by the twinges it gave him. At present it indicated “clear weather.”

Hamilton had begun to doze away in the warm sunshine, when he heard a thumping of crutches down the corridor. He turned around.

“If it isn’t old Ham himself!” cried the man on crutches.

“Bill McCall!” Hamilton was on his feet. “Where’d you come from?”

The next moment they were shaking hands and looking into each other’s eyes. Hamilton retained his grasp.

“I want to thank you, Bill, I want to tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done,” Hamilton began, his throat choking. “I don’t know what to say; but I’ll always feel indebted to you for my—life.”

“Oh, stow it,” cut in McCall. “It was no more than any one else would have done under the circumstances.” McCall slid into a chair, one leg held gingerly out and deposited the crutches on the floor. Hamilton resumed his seat. “As a matter of fact, the men you really owe your life to are Williams—”

“The nigger? Yes, I suppose so.”

“And Dr. Levin.”

“Dr. Levin? Who’s he?”

“He’s your surgeon. Don’t you know him? Black-haired fellow, blue eyes, little stoop-shouldered. Comes here every day. Got a lot of other wards, too. Isn’t he still handling your case?”

“Oh, the doctor, sure. I didn’t know his name, though. Levin? Jewish name, isn’t it?”

“Must be. Anyway it was Dr. Levin who really saved your life. Williams and I simply brought your body back. But you were hanging by a hair. It was Dr. Levin who pulled you through.

“Don’t you remember reading about Dr. Levin joining the service—giving up his big practice and all that—about the time we left for training camp. I remember it because I wrote it.”

“It isn’t that Dr. Levin, is it?”

“Yes, the big surgeon.”

“But he looks so confoundedly young and unassuming.”

“Well, he is young. Just a little over the draft age. I remember covering the story at the time. Bob, you don’t know what fine medical care we’re getting in this man’s army. This specialist has made you a nice new rib out of silver and spliced the pieces of bone together to the plate, or bar, or something, so that the bone would form over it again. What’s the matter, old man, you’re trembling. Here, take this pill. I’ve got plenty.

“Now you’ve got a tin rib to match my aluminum shin and my nickel-plated skull.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at this leg.”

McCall pulled up the leg of his pajama and revealed a narrow, almost imperceptible scar.

“Feel it. Oh, it won’t bite you. A neat job. Now run your finger over my skull here. That’s some more of Levin’s work.”

“But it’s right next to the eye, that dent there.”

“Sure.”

“But you couldn’t have been hit there without losing your sight. The shell would have cut your optic nerve.”

“Well?”

Hamilton stared at McCall. “Well? You don’t mean to tell me, Bill—not your eye.”

McCall shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, one eye’s enough, anyway. I can see everything as well—Here, nurse, orderly!” His voice rang out. “He’s fainted.”

But Meadows had already seen Bob’s head fall forward against McCall’s knee, and the next minute Hamilton was back in bed.

“Just a slight relapse,” smiled Meadows. “They get that way when they’re not used to walking. Come in again when he’s a little stronger.”

VII

McCall, whose bed was in an adjoining ward, called frequently. There was a possibility that his eyesight might still be restored, but the operation was extremely hazardous. It involved fastening together the two ends of the optic nerve, close to the brain. As time went on the nerve tissue would shrivel and recede, so that if McCall waited too long the ends of the nerve would no longer meet. If an operation was to be performed, it would have to be done as quickly as possible. McCall could see perfectly out of his right eye. A successful operation would restore sight to the left eye as well. On the other hand, failure might prove fatal.

Dr. Levin had laid the problem squarely before McCall and the latter was pondering it seriously.

“I’ve a good mind, Bob, to give him a shot at it,” said McCall one day, as they sat side by side on Hamilton’s cot.

“But supposing he fails?”

“Well, there’ll be one less newspaper man in the world. I suppose The Times will have to find a new star reporter. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Dr. Levin is like fate. In his hands is the knife that will kill or restore my sight. I think it’s worth the gamble. You have your eyes, so you don’t realize what sight means. I know. When I first came to they had a bandage over my eyes and I thought I was totally blind. And believe me, I cried like a kid. When they told me that one eye would probably be all right and perhaps the other, I didn’t believe it.

“I thought of all the beautiful things I had seen—sunrises and sunsets, mountain peaks, the ocean, Lake Michigan in the morning, you know how it is, with the sun dripping red and gold. There were things I had forgotten—paintings and statues, and faces. They all came back to me. I saw my mother, my dad, members of the family, old friends. And colors. Did you ever see Paris on Bastile day? An impressionistic painting after Monet, with daubs of color all over it—brilliant reds and blues and yellows and greens. Or a wood in Illinois in autumn. And shadows. Foggy, drizzling nights with everything in shadow, but the reflection from the pavement, and friendly stabs of color from windows and street lamps. And moonlit nights on river banks. And—but what’s the use.”

They were silent for a moment.

“But I thought you could see just as well with one eye,” ventured Hamilton.

“Almost. Well, I’ve gotten used to it and I could get along as well with one eye if—if I knew I could always have that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, as the tissue forming the nerve running to my left eye shrivels up, it may—it might affect the other eye. Those things happen. It might take two years, it might take ten years, but sometime in the future there is always that possibility, that chance of going blind altogether.

“I’m a gambler. I’d risk everything to keep my sight. You don’t know. It’s worth everything!”

As the two friends discussed the advisability of the operation, Dr. Levin loomed in their minds like a personification of fate. The surgeon remembered McCall as a feature writer for The Times and took a particular interest in him. He would come to the two friends, as they sat together, and join their conversation. They talked pleasantly of art, literature, the effects of the war, the terms of the treaty and women. At other times all three played cards.

Dr. Levin was a man of medium height, and with a straight nose and blue eyes that belied his race. People were continually telling him that he did not look like a Jew—a fact which invariably nettled him. It was as if people were saying that, whatever he might be on the inside, outwardly he could pass for a man. In college he had even been invited to join a Greek letter fraternity by some well-meaning Christian colleague, not up on the art of trailing one’s ancestry by one’s name.

When Dr. Levin spoke it was with nervous force. He was forever anticipating other persons’ questions and usually correctly. His mind ran nimbly from subject to subject, and he was equally at home in a discussion on anthropology and art. Persons who knew him casually called him an “intellectual.” And there were subjects in addition, that is, to his chosen field, surgery, in which he did display scholarship. Psychology was one of these.

When Hamilton had thanked him for saving his life, Dr. Levin had dismissed the matter by saying that it was only a case, like any other of a thousand cases.

“From your viewpoint it may be a wonderful service that I am doing, but from my viewpoint it is a remarkable opportunity for study,” Dr. Levin had explained. “Well, I’ll admit that patriotism had something to do with my coming here.” His eyes twinkled. “But think of the wonderful clinic I have before me. Hundreds of cases that the average surgeon runs across once in a lifetime. Hundreds of variations of injury that one would not find in a thousand years in the largest hospital in the world. Each fresh case a problem—an interesting problem to be solved. A challenge to my skill and ingenuity. We surgeons evolve new systems of treatment, new techniques, new theories, as we go along.

“That is the best part of my work,” the surgeon went on enthusiastically, “it gives one a chance to serve his community and to express his own individuality at the same time.”

“Don’t you feel any difference in your attitude when you treat a case like—like that one?” asked Hamilton.

“Certainly not,” replied Levin. “There’s your snobbishness creeping out. You’re probably a Southerner, aren’t you? I thought so. The antipathy to the negro is interesting as a phenomenon. It’s a problem in mob psychology. But a surgeon cuts down under the skin of man—literally. You’ve never seen a class in anatomy. Well, to the surgeon, to the scientist, there isn’t such overwhelming proof of the white man’s superiority. No, I don’t mean just physically. You remember how the Teutonic barbarians swept over Rome. And the white men whipping the Indians. It all seemed part of some divine scheme to keep the inferior races subdued. The Nordic, including the Teuton, you know, always has boasted of his physical superiority. But now, when his physical superiority is not so well established over the black, he argues that it is not important.

“But mentally—The weight of the average negro’s brain I’ll grant is slightly less than the weight of the average white man’s. Yet the brains are almost identical. The stuff in Williams’ brain is in all probability the same as in your brain, Hamilton. It may be a little finer quality, or a little poorer. There may be more of it or less of it, even though you are a Hamilton of Virginia, or wherever it is, and Williams, the grandson of a negro slave. As a matter of fact, Williams is probably as well educated as any of us. We’re all college graduates—McCall, you and I. Well, Williams is a Harvard graduate. It doesn’t mean much, if you or I are college men. Probably couldn’t help it. Our parents mapped out our educational program for us, but do you realize what it means to win a college education, with the whole white world sneering at you and offering obstacles to your path? And, of course, there’s poverty. But that’s only a minor difficulty.”

“Oh, there are some smart niggers, I’ll admit,” said Hamilton frowning, “but they’re the exceptions. Booker T. Washington, this poet, Dunbar, I guess his name is. And I’ve read some of DuBois in college, sociology class. But the mass—Ugh!”

Hamilton made a wry face.

“Well, you’ve got to judge the negro race by the exceptions,” said the surgeon. “Why? Because it’s only the exceptional negro who’s had the same chance as the average white man. You wouldn’t compare a man whose grandfather had been a slave and his father practically a peon on a plantation, a man without any schooling, with a man whose ancestors had been freemen and who had enjoyed education for at least a few generations. If the average negro had the same chance as the average white, the comparison would be fair.

“But we’re drifting off into something that lies beyond reason and argument and I just dropped in for a friendly chat. I think you’ll be out in a week.”

While Levin was the scientist of the three, McCall was the poet and the champion of human rights. While Levin weighed and analysed, McCall rhapsodised.

McCall was enthusiastic about each claim for national independence as it arose at the peace conference and was recorded in the newspapers. He waxed eloquent not only over the wrongs of Ireland, but of the Jews, and was more of a Zionist than Levin, who sometimes doubted the practicability of rehabilitating Palestine—building a country out of a desert, investing millions of dollars, raising the hopes of millions of human beings for the sake of an idea.

McCall was a poet in practise, as well as by inclination, although he had allowed only a few of his most intimate friends to set eyes upon his poems. He had several manuscripts of plays and short stories tucked away somewhere in a trunk at home, which he meant to publish to the world some day.

Physically, McCall was not unlike Levin. McCall was perhaps an inch taller and held himself straighter. But there was the same boyishness of figure, and McCall had dark hair and blue eyes as well.

Often when the conversation drifted to anthropology, Levin would slyly compare the color of his eyes with those of Hamilton and McCall. Hamilton had brown eyes. His hair too was dark, although not so black as either Levin’s or McCall’s, and he was cast in a larger mold, physically—within an inch of six feet in height and broad of shoulder.

“You see what happens to your pure types,” laughed Levin. “Here’s the descendant of the blue-eyed, fair-haired Saxon with brown eyes and the descendant of the dark-skinned Semite with blue eyes. You see all this pride in race is after all based on a very slim physical foundation. All modern peoples are mixtures of many different tribes and races. Even the Jew and the Chinese, who usually boast of their racial purity. As for the Englishman—England has been the melting pot, for centuries, of northern Europe. Here you have the original Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, the Danes, the Normans, probably some Jews and any number of modern European strains. And the Americans who boast of their pure English ancestry might as well boast of being descended from Adam.”

McCall applauded these sentiments, but Hamilton staunchly upheld the supremacy of the Nordic.

The day before Hamilton left the hospital, he had a chance to thank Williams for rescuing him. Williams was just regaining consciousness from a series of operations that had riveted together bits of shattered bone in both arms, a shin and one thigh. Only the thickness of his skull and his powerful constitution had pulled him through, according to Dr. Levin. He was lying flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling when Hamilton leaned over him. His arms and legs were still in casts and he was too weak to observe closely Hamilton’s expression. The white man extended his hand absent-mindedly, then suddenly realized that the negro could not use his own. The latter smiled.

“That’s all right,” said he. “It is slightly discommoding.”

Hamilton flushed and stumbled about to find the right words. Condescension, patronage, a sense of his own awkwardness, genuine thankfulness appeared in his voice. But the man who had saved his life grinned good-naturedly and nodded. He was used to this air of patronage on the part of white men. He understood.

VIII

Both Hamilton and McCall obtained sick leaves and spent them in savoring Paris and Parisian life. There were days of strolling down the boulevards, McCall limping at Hamilton’s side, and “drinking in” the life of which they had been deprived for so many months. “Drinking in” was McCall’s own phrase, and it described better than anything else the eagerness with which each new sight, each fresh impression, was seized. There were wonderful afternoons in the art galleries, with Hamilton absorbing his fill of the old masters and McCall revelling in the modernists. There were tramps through the public gardens, and visits to the places of historical interest—the Bastile, the palaces at Versailles, the public buildings. There were nights at the music-halls and cabarets, where pleasure-seeking men and women, casting convention to the winds, sought to crowd into a few hours of drinking and dancing, all that they had missed since the beginning of the war. Hamilton and McCall were in a mad world, a world of jazz-crazed mockers at morality, of civilized men and women suddenly reverting to barbaric pleasures. The American craze was at its height and in deference to it, negro musicians, dressed in brilliant red and yellow, blared and sobbed weird melodies to wild African rhythms. Prostitutes, with thin veils to hide their nakedness, quivered and undulated to the minor strains. Men and women danced in pantomimic obscenities and suggested perversions.

“Let’s get out of this,” exclaimed Hamilton, “I’m no tin angel, but, thank God, they don’t do this in America.”

“The funny thing about these frogs is that they think they’re being American,” said McCall. “That’s all put on for our benefit. Didn’t you notice how sweet everybody has been to us here?”

Whenever Levin accompanied the two, he would point to the jazz music and dancing as an example of the moral reaction that follows every war.

“It’s a sort of relapse, following a major operation,” he explained. “We’ve cut out the Kaiser and perhaps Kaiserism, although you can’t tell, the roots sometimes spread all over the body, like a cancer. No, all the Kaiserism is not in Germany. It’s here. It’s in England. It’s in America, just trying to get a start. But whether the disease has been definitely checked or not, we are going to pass through a relapse. This is the social phase of it.”

There was a visit to a theatre, where a series of short plays were being acted. There was a hideous horror play, followed by the conventional adultery farce and then a silhouette novelty—nude women dancing behind a sheet so that their figures were projected by bright lights upon it.

Hamilton was disgusted. Dr. Levin simply classified it as another symptom of relapse—he avoided the term “decadence”; but McCall was amused.

“It reminds me of school children twiddling their fingers at their teacher,” he laughed. “They’re so evidently produced to shock. A blush or shiver in every line! Do you remember when you learned your first naughty word, how you looked up the synonyms in the dictionary and then sprang them on your pals? With some it was more of an obsession than with others, of course. They would chalk up all the whoppers they could think on the sidewalks and sides of buildings. Well, that’s what the French playwrights are doing, and some of the poets and artists. Freud might explain it by showing that their normal impulses were checked in some way.

“I remember a Chicago newspaperman who got an overdose of Havelock Ellis and Freud and the decadents, I suppose. The result was a book with all the conventionally naughty things trotted in, like the chalk marks of an impudent schoolboy who hasn’t got enough outdoor exercise. And when the book was suppressed, he enjoyed all the sensations of the bad boy sitting on the stool with a dunce cap on his head, wriggling his fingers at authority.”

The ateliers, into which McCall’s newspaper friends got the three friends entrée, were more to their liking. Although here, too, Bill often found finger-wriggling at authority for its own sake. Here, at least, the delusion was honest. But in the drawing rooms they saw Paris in deeper perspective.

Here were men of all countries and representing all causes. Men in conventional black and white, sometimes relieved by a ribbon across an immaculate shirt front or a jeweled decoration; men in uniforms and in picturesque native costumes. There were red men, yellow men, black men and white men—men of all shades between. An Arab sheik, in turban and flowing robe, come to sue for the autonomy of a stretch of desert, conversed with the representative from Albania, in Paris on a similar mission. There were brilliant young Irish leaders and dreamers of the national independence of Bohemia. Fighters for Palestine, Polish nationalists, Hindu revolters, Persian revolutionists. One could not move without bumping into the holder of some claim of national autonomy.

“The trouble with them is that they’re all right, and, therefore, all wrong,” said Dr. Levin. “One of them could be right, or two, but here you run into twenty claims that contradict each other. Every land believes its natural boundaries to be the widest boundaries it can get—the boundaries when Peter the Magnificent or Oswald the Resplendent (some national hero that nobody else has ever heard about) reigned. And, of course, the domains of Peter overlap those of Oswald, who ruled a hundred years later. Each country is right, that is as right as any other country. But in this case, too many rights make everything all wrong.”

McCall sympathized with every national aspiration, and when delegates learned that in civilian life he was a writer on one of the great American newspapers they poured their woes and hopes into his ear. Hamilton, as an orthodox Democrat and admirer of President Wilson, listened eagerly.

There were Russian emigrés galore, whose downfall caused McCall to chuckle, although it was harder to delight in the fate of the mysterious Russian noblewoman—tall, slim, straight-shouldered, with brown hair, high cheek bones and great onyx-colored eyes—who hovered about.

There were other beautiful women—tall, fair English-women; animated, little Parisienne brunettes; a few majestic Americans. It was interesting to guess their nationality.

“There’s something about this I’m getting to like,” said Hamilton. “This cosmopolitan atmosphere. I’ve always been with Americans, of a certain class. Here one meets people from all parts of the world. And it’s not just a matter of having money, like in Chicago or New York. Some of the most interesting chaps here have been the painters and writers, fellows just struggling to get a hold on things.

“During the war, when I was quartered in little villages, I got an idea that the French were robbers, who tried to stick the Americans for every cent they could. I got a contempt for them because they didn’t have shower baths and modern plumbing, and apple pie in the restaurants. I see now, sanitary plumbing and all that is only one phase of civilization.”

But though Hamilton was beginning to admire the intellectual democracy of Paris, there was one aspect of it he could not understand. He could accept the presence of Chinamen and Japs and Hindus in the drawing room—but the blacks! Sometimes a Senegalese war hero or even an American negro would become the center of admiring men and women.

Hamilton tried to explain the American viewpoint to his French associates, but they generally shook their heads.

“White supremacy must be maintained at all costs,” Hamilton was arguing with a young French colonel one day.

“Well, what of it?”

“Don’t you see, if we allow them social equality, our white race will disappear.”

“Not if it is naturally superior, how can it?”

“No, I don’t mean it will actually disappear,” went on Hamilton, “but it will become something different. It will become—mulatto. If we allowed the negroes equality, we would become a nation of mulattoes.”

“Mon Dieu!” the Frenchman raised his arms in mock horror. “You tell me your American women would all choose black mates, if you allowed them to? Ha, Ha!”

Before Hamilton could think of a reply, McCall was descending upon him with a vision in black taffeta.

He jumped quickly to his feet. For a moment he had the illusion that he was back in a ballroom in Corinth. Then he remembered who she was. The gown clung softly to her so that it delicately suggested the wearer’s figure. It was distinctly old-fashioned—like a gown Jenny Lind might have worn, and there was a vestee of some fluffy blue material and sprigs of blue forget-me-nots embroidered here and there.

“Meadows! Miss Meadows!”

Meadows extended her hand and smiled.

“We’ve been looking for you, Colonel,” she said.

Hamilton presented Colonel Charbonneau and the latter glanced in surprise at the single bar on Hamilton’s shoulder. Meadows read his astonishment.

“‘Colonel’ is just an honorary title we’ve given him,” she explained. “Because he’s so dignified and old-fashioned.”

Col. Charbonneau threw back his head and laughed.

“Are all colonels supposed to be so dignified?”

“Oh, I was speaking only of our southern American colonels,” replied Meadows. “They’re a special variety.”

“But your young officer was very gallant in defending the American women,” his eyes twinkled mischievously.

“Oh, yes,” flashed back Meadows, “they’re always defending womankind, or the white race or Anglo-Saxon institutions or something. And I sort of like it at that.” She darted the flushed Hamilton a look out of her dancing brown eyes. “Women still live in an age of chivalry—at least some of us do.”

They chatted for a few minutes and then Col. Charbonneau excused himself, and walked away. McCall followed a few minutes later.

“Do you know I expect to rejoin my regiment in a week?” said Hamilton. “We’re going back together, McCall and I. You see both of us got our commissions at the same training camp and we’ve gone through the war together.”

“I suppose the war has bred pretty strong friendships, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s something like the college fraternity spirit, only stronger. There’s McCall, for instance. I owe my life to him. We’ll always be friends. And lately I’ve taken a liking to Dr. Levin. I suppose I owe my life to him too. He’s rather hard to understand at first.”

“Hard to understand? He’s simply deeper, more thorough than the average person.”

“I suppose that’s it,” agreed Hamilton. “He criticises things, has so many theories. But when you get to know him he’s all right. You know I’ve never had much to do with Jews before. Not for any particular reason, but because I didn’t come in contact with ’em. But my experience with Levin simply shows that there are some good Jews. I’ve noticed that he’s more like the other men one meets here. I suppose ‘cosmopolitan’ is the word. I suppose you’ve made lots of friends, too.”

“With a woman,” mused Meadows, “it’s different. There’s a certain ‘camaraderie’ among the nurses, but it’s not the same thing as a man’s friendship. Women have no such thing as friendship, in fact. Oh, I suppose I should say seldom. Take man’s club life. Women may organize for a special purpose—to study, to sew, to give plays, to play auction bridge, to knit sweaters—but not for simple friendship. Women in the same set are always antagonistic to each other. They try to outdo each other in the matter of beauty, of dress, of personal charm. They are always competitors for the potential male.”

“But you have friends?”

Meadows laughed. “It’s like this. When the patients—my boys—are convalescent they become sentimental and romantic. Sometimes this friendship, or whatever it is, lasts after they’ve recovered. They come back and invite me out, or bring me candy or flowers.”

“And then what?”

“And then—then they’re men and I’m a woman. They’re disappointed and I don’t see them again.”

Hamilton’s eyes blazed and he clenched his fists. Meadows noticed it.

“Oh, they’re not all like that,” she said. “Only most of them. I have a few real friends, at least I think I have.”

“And am I—?”

“Oh, of course, you’re all right, Colonel. I could see that from the beginning. I said there were some friends.”

“Well, in a week, I’ll be leaving—”

“Oh, we’ll meet again,” Meadows anticipated. “Probably oftener than you think.”

Meadows always avoided sentimental entanglements.

“But I must see you again before I go.”

“Must?”

From across the room came the sound of some one singing Suwanee River—a tenor voice, soft and sweet as a spring night in Georgia.

“Yes, must. I’ve hardly talked to you for five minutes straight. We happen to have been blown together here like atoms of dust. Tomorrow we may be at the opposite ends of the earth.”

“So you’d like to know more about this atom of dust, before I’m blown away. Well, Colonel Dustman, you may call for me Friday. I’ll have the afternoon off. That’s only two days from now. If you can wait.”

Their hostess, the Countess Montfort, whose eyes had been traveling from one face to another, like a mother hen summoning her chicks—was approaching, her plump, pretty face all solicitous smiles.

“Ah, I know you are both in such charming company,” she pouted, “but would you not like to listen to the singing from one of your countrymen? Monsieur Veeliams has such a splendid voice.”

“Friday then,” Hamilton agreed. As Hamilton and Meadows arose, the countess passed on to another group.

“That’s another one of my boys over there—singing—Williams,” said Meadows.

“Williams? I don’t know any Williams—except the nigger whose bed was next to mine.”

“Well, that’s the one.”

“How’d he get in here?”

“The same way you did—walked. No, he didn’t either, he came here in the countess’ own car. He’s still too bandaged up to do much walking. But he got his invitation the same way you did.”

“I thought mine had come through McCall.”

“Indirectly, perhaps. I happen to know the countess. She wanted to meet some interesting Americans. So I gave her your names.”

Williams’ face was hidden from Hamilton, but Hamilton could see that in the circle of his auditors were members of the flower of Parisian society—distinguished diplomats, scholars, writers, women of striking beauty and brilliant attainments. And epigram and pointed repartee were falling from the African lips as adroitly as from the product of the ripest European and Oriental civilizations. The nigger was at home with them.

Hamilton’s face became contorted with rage, his fists clenched.

“You don’t know what you are doing.” He tried to keep his voice from rising. “These people don’t know. They mean well. But if you’d lived in the South as a child and seen what I’ve seen—”

He became suddenly speechless.

“I—I think I’ll not wait,” he finally said. “I’m going back to the hotel.”

His dark eyes blazing, Hamilton turned and strode out of the room. Meadows watched him in amazement. She had admired Hamilton’s air of calm strength, his sincerity, his deference to womankind. But she had never suspected him capable of such an outburst of passion.

There was a lull in the other conversations which suddenly carried Williams’ voice through the room. He had been describing the attitude of colored soldiers on the eve of battle. He told how the members of an infantry regiment to which he had been attached sat on the fire-step, a few hours before going over the top, harmonizing old plantation tunes.

“Of course, I should have three other men to make it sound better—to form a quartette. But you can get the idea. Picture it—a cold, raw night, with the water falling, drizzling; mud and rotting bodies; terrific explosions, like a hundred boiler shops going at once; death and cold and hell all over. Now imagine this as sung by the quartette—“Massa’s in de Col’, Col’ Groun’.”

In a plaintive, vibrant tenor, Williams sang again:

“Massa’s in de col’, col’ groun’,

An’ we’s all gwine be with him in de mawnin’.”

IX

Promptly at noon, Friday, Hamilton was ringing the bell at the nurses’ home. Meadows, enveloped in a blue cloak, opened the door for him.

“Right on time,” she laughed, extending her hand. “Do you wish to come in? All right, then, we’ll go ahead.”

Hamilton wondered what Meadows thought of his conduct at the reception—his sudden leaving—his angry denunciation of the colored race—as they walked together to the curb.

Through the stark trees a bright December sun was shining. Hundreds of students of the Sorbonne, a few blocks away, were on the streets, coming from their morning classes, talking, shouting, laughing, singing. Hamilton was about to signal a cab.

“Oh, let’s walk,” said Meadows impulsively. “It’s such a beautiful day.

“But first”—she halted, and shook her finger at him, “before we go on—wherever we’re going—you haven’t told me—you must promise not to run away from me in case we should happen to run across Williams or some other colored patient and I answer his greeting.”

“I suppose I do owe you an apology for my outburst at the reception,” Hamilton replied. “But seriously, I don’t know if I shouldn’t run away. That happens to be one thing I feel strongly about. I suppose you’ve never lived in the South.”

Meadows shook her head.

“Well, then, you can have no conception of what the negro problem means to the Southerner. Of course I shouldn’t have lost my temper. A person never should do that. And the French, who before the war probably saw a negro once a year—and then a genius, one of those freaks that is apt to come out of any race—don’t understand.”

“Well, maybe I don’t understand, either. And another thing I don’t understand—where you’re taking me.”

“Oh, I thought we’d have lunch at some restaurant and then take in a vaudeville.”

“Let’s just ramble through the Luxembourg Gardens,” suggested Meadows. “It’s only a few blocks away and it will give us the afternoon to ourselves.”

“All right, the Luxembourg Gardens it will be then,” agreed Hamilton. “Perhaps you could suggest the restaurant. As a matter of fact, I’ve been seeing Paris mostly by night, and specializing in only indecent cafés.”

Meadows did know just the café, only a few blocks down Rue de St. Jacques and around the corner, a relatively obscure place for most Americans, but the haunt of tourists “who really know,” and the less impecunious students. It was a rather unimposing place, from the outside. One entered it after stumbling down a flight of decrepit stairs and opening an ancient door. But inside everything was inviting. It was called the Black Cat and everything was done in black and orange, with black cats forming the principal motif of ornament. Black cats ran around the wall in a stencilled pattern and basked in front of the cozy fireplace in the form of cast-iron statuettes. Hamilton noticed that a log was blazing briskly. Black cats grimaced from under the shades of the table lamps and from the salt and pepper shakers. And, as Hamilton sat down, he noticed that even the backs of the chairs were ferocious chats noirs.

The proprietor himself, or so it seemed—no other person in the world could possibly have taken such an interest in the patrons—greeted them with a smile and conducted them personally to a table. He was a short, dark, stout man, with carefully curled jet-black mustache, who smiled and bowed perpetually, like an automaton.

One of a half-dozen waiters who had been hurrying about, placed menus, decorated with hungry black cats, in front of them with a flourish and—oh, so humbly!—suggested dishes for the Americans’ consideration.

“Oh, you must try one of their omelettes. They’re famous for them,” said Meadows. “Monsieur Barbiton—that’s that grinning Billiken—can do more things with eggs than any other three chefs in Paris, which means the world.”

While waiting for their omelettes, Hamilton and Meadows looked about the room. It was larger than one would think upon first entering, much larger than one would imagine from the outside—but cozy. There was a comfortable clatter of dishes and a buzz of voices. The diners were mostly Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, shrugging their shoulders and gesticulating over their food. Here and there appeared the sombre uniform of an American or English officer.

“How much warmer every one seems here,” remarked Meadows, groping about in her mind for the right adjective. “Here they come to discuss things—art, poetry, philosophy, politics. In a Broadway restaurant people come to eat and get over the business as quickly as possible.”

Hamilton laughed.

“Oh, I suppose we’re too efficient. Afraid to waste time. In the South, though, we take things a bit easier.”

“But are we Americans really so efficient?” queried Meadows. “We hurry about a great deal, but do we get anywhere?”

“Well, we are tremendously advanced in technical matters—in machine production. We can make things faster and cheaper than any other country in the world. The average American workingman probably produces twice as much as the best workingman in Europe.”

Hamilton paused. The waiter was approaching with a tray of hors d’œuvres—olives, radishes, appetizing little fish that Hamilton failed to recognize. He selected a radish and emphasized points with it between bites. He was entering into the atmosphere of the place.

“But in order to get this production, the business man has to work like the deuce. He’s at his desk early in the morning and late at night. He runs into a restaurant at noon, grabs a ham sandwich, a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, eats it in a cramped position from the arm of a chair, and rushes back again. He’s not a captain, but a slave of industry.”

Hamilton went on lugubriously, with mock dramatic force. “There’s your plutocrat. Your silk-hatted, obese gentleman of the cartoons. As a matter of fact he is usually thin and suffering from dyspepsia. This is the object of the attack of the representatives of the pee-pul—the demagogues. This is your hated capitalist. I prefer the man who has sense enough to see that there is nothing essentially noble in work and who devotes his time to the pleasures of life.”

Over the omelettes, which after the first bite, Hamilton decided were worth all their reputation, the discussion was resumed.

“Isn’t that a rather narrow view to take?” asked Meadows. “Devoting one’s life to mere pleasure.”

“It’s the very highest. What are the higher things in life but means to increasing our pleasure? What is all our culture—manners, art, literature, music? Even religion is the sole pleasure of the millions who are too incompetent or unfortunate to enjoy the material pleasures of life, the pleasures of the flesh. There is no rational occupation for man, aside from what is absolutely necessary for his subsistence, except the pursuit of pleasure.”

“But haven’t you any place for duty in your philosophy?” put in Meadows. “Your views are interesting, but obviously only applicable to a small class. Obviously every one couldn’t go about hunting pleasure.”

“Certainly, it’s a class philosophy,” replied Hamilton. “I don’t pretend to prescribe a philosophy that fits every one. It’s simply my own private brand. It would be just as ridiculous for me to have a philosophy that is more universally applicable, as it would be for me to drink beer instead of Château Yquem, because it suits more palates.”

“And you don’t care about the beer drinker?”

“On the whole, he’s just as well off as your average American capitalist. He eats more, sleeps as long, and satisfies practically the same desires. Both read the same newspapers and attend the same movies. And the beer drinker doesn’t have to worry about his wife eloping with the chauffeur.”

“So you admit the morality of the beer drinkers, only I don’t like that term.”

“That,” interrupted Hamilton, his eyes gleaming, “is because your appetite also has been developed beyond the beer stage.”

“Anyway you admit that his morality is higher.”

“Not at all. His wife very obviously cannot elope with a chauffeur, because there’s no chauffeur to elope with. In fact, she may already be married to him.”

They both laid down their forks and laughed.

“You’ve aroused a tremendous appetite in me for Château Yquem,” said Meadows mischievously. And Hamilton ordered a bottle, after the waiter had assured him that the oldest bottle in Paris lay in the wine cellar of the Black Cat.

“After a swallow I may learn to appreciate your point of view better,” she said.

“There’s no pleasanter way of learning that I know of.”

Hamilton watched Meadows lift the glass to her lips, her dark eyes sparkling as brightly as the yellow wine. He had never noticed how charmingly her lips were curved before. A ridiculous idea came into his mind and he promptly dismissed it. Certainly he was not falling in love with her. This was merely companionship—intellectual companionship. And, of course, there was Margaret, to whom he was engaged and whom he really loved. Meadows made a little face, whether it was expressive of dislike or of coquetry Hamilton was not certain.

“Boo!” said Meadows, setting it down. “I’m afraid I’ll have to remain a plain American bourgeoise.”

“You couldn’t do that,” Hamilton made a mock bow, supposed to be imitative of the restaurant proprietor. “You couldn’t, even if you did remain a bourgeoise.”

“You’re perfectly horrible today, Colonel!” Meadows laughed. Over his wine and pastry he watched the changing expressions in her face. Were her eyes actually larger than Margaret’s? There was a resemblance between them. Meadows seemed more cosmopolitan, yet hardly less girlish. He watched the high lights in her hair, where the sun fell on it through the window. Then her lips again. They were very much like Margaret’s. He wondered whether she would go out with other officers after he was gone. Probably, he decided. And would he ever see her again? He imagined Margaret meeting Meadows and perhaps thanking her. He was conscious of her voice going on and it soothed him in a strange way. Vaguely it made him feel as though he were with Margaret. This, he reasoned with himself, was no treachery. Meadows was simply a medium for the expression of a certain mood. She represented Margaret.

“I bet you haven’t heard a word I said.”

Hamilton came out of his trance.

“Why, yes I have.” He groped blindly. “You were asking me if—if—”

“See, you haven’t been listening to me. You’ve sat that way for ten minutes, staring at something.”

Hamilton didn’t wish to say it, fought against saying it, and said it, although still in his tone of light banter.

“I was staring into your eyes. You know how one loses oneself while gazing into a crystal.”

Now that he had said it, it sounded flat, stilted. But even so, flattery of some kind was his only possible defense. Meadows made a little bow.

“While you were crystal-gazing you mumbled something about your idea of aristocracy and business efficiency.”

“Oh, did I? It’s simply that an aristocracy, freed from the necessity of work, that is, free to seek pleasure, is necessary if we are to have any culture—any civilization higher than a factory civilization.”

“Then you’d have to have a class that works and another class that lives on the fruits of their labor.”

“Exactly.”

“Now I understand your attitude toward the Negro. You’d have them slaves.”

“Slaves, servants or laborers—in their definite place—it doesn’t matter. And a cultured, leisure class instead of the efficient business man. But that isn’t what we’re here for—to discuss sociology. I want to know more about you. This may be our last time together.”

He leaned across the table, conscious that his hands were moving toward hers across the cloth. But he stopped them.

“You know I’m going to rejoin my regiment Monday. Another month in barracks and then I’ll be sailing back.”

They rose, Hamilton helped her into her cloak, paid his pour boire to the waiter and picked up his check.

“They’re not so inefficient,” he said, glancing at the figures.

“Who? The French?”

“Yes, they put a half dozen hors d’œuvres on the table that aren’t on the menu and charge you for the whole plate if you take just a single radish or olive or whatever it is. Well, c’est la guerre. Poor devils, they need it.”

X

They were walking down the magnificent Rue Soufflet, Hamilton immersed in thought, Meadows keeping up the burden of conversation. At the corner of Rue de St. Jacques, Meadows pointed out the bronze tablet of the old Porte St. Jacques and for a moment they paused to decipher it. Between the Parthenon, which glittered from an eminence to the east and Boulevard St. Michel ahead, crowds of students were walking leisurely arm in arm, arguing, gesticulating, singing. Men with beards and boyish faces, voluptuous velvet hats; thin, threadbare coats. There were pale young men, with negligent clothing and an air of being mildly intoxicated. Over the buildings to the north rose the towers of the Sorbonne.

The students formed a background—a restless current, sparkling, gay, animated, against which moved other figures; girls in gay clothes, coats to their knees, bobbed hair, stopping to flirt; men of affairs hurrying to the boulevard; officers, including a score of foreigners doing the Latin Quartier. Crippled soldiers. On the road the stream of taxis and motor cars.

Meadows’ blue cloak made a daub of color in the picture and Hamilton’s quick eyes noted it. He was thinking how well she fitted into his brief world here. He was wondering how she would fit into life in New York—or Corinth. And again he compared her with that other figure. He wished it were Spring.

A man and woman went by, their arms around each other, unmindful of the world—a man with long hair and a silky beard, meanly dressed, without gloves; a frail blonde with high run-down heels and torn gloves. But their eyes shone. Hamilton envied them.

They crossed the Boulevard St. Michel and entered the Luxembourg Gardens. There were other couples walking about, examining the statuary and sitting on the benches. Some were making love openly; others more subtly. Near a bronze statue of a fawn sat a one-legged soldier and his wife. They were holding hands and looking before them vacantly. A boy of four in a soldier’s suit stood watching them gravely. There were other soldiers, many of them crippled.

Hamilton was acutely conscious of the shortness of the day. A few more hours and it would be over. Then, farewell to Paris and Meadows. He was falling into a sentimental mood. He wondered whether he should tell her of his engagement to Margaret. Probably she had guessed it. At any rate, he decided, there was no occasion for his mentioning it now.

Near the Fontaine de Medicis they found a bench thoughtfully hidden from the walk by shrubbery. They sat down and suddenly looked into each other’s eyes. The sun was falling in a stream across her hair and a coquettish puff of wind was toying with a loosened strand. They were so close now that the end touched his cheek. He leaned over, his heart pounding, while his hand found hers. But she lowered her head, turned it to one side and looked away.

He remained holding her hand and presently she looked up. They went on talking, rapidly, lightly, neither understanding what they were saying, conscious of only one thing, and determined not to acknowledge its presence. To acknowledge it would mean to stifle it.

How had this happened? He had simply meant to say good-bye to Dorothy—that is, to Meadows. He owed her much for her kindness in the hospital. That was all. And here he was holding her hand. It was too late to withdraw his hand. He must wait until she took hers away. But probably she was unconscious that they were holding hands. Women sometimes were like that. Or, perhaps, it had no special meaning to her. Other persons were doing it and thinking nothing of it, couples probably even less intimate than they.

“And I suppose you’ll be seeing that girl in Corinth,” Meadows was saying.

“Yes, of course.” Hamilton didn’t know how the talk had drifted to her.

“Does she know you’ve been wounded?”

Hamilton did not wish to talk about Margaret, but he answered, “Yes and no. That is, I wrote her that I had been slightly scratched by a piece of shell. She doesn’t know how serious it’s been. I was afraid it might give her a shock. She’s such a child. It’s really nothing to worry about, although Dr. Levin said I must take things easy, for a time at least.”

“Poor, brave boy,” said Meadows, shaking her head slowly.

“I suppose it’s my contribution to settling the great war. But you’ve given more, infinitely more, for a woman.”

“Oh, only about two years that I might have spent in dancing, attending teas and receptions, playing the society girl—and I haven’t missed all the receptions, either. It’s all been very fascinating—and hard. I got into the work before we declared war—that is before we declared that a state of war existed.”

“How did you happen to join the Red Cross? You’re not a professional nurse, are you? It must have taken a lot of pluck.”

“I’m almost a graduate, six months from being one. You have to be, you know. But I’m not a professional nurse in the sense that I expect to earn a living at it. You see, I’ve always had a hobby for social service. But when I was studying sociology in college I found that the trouble with the professional sociologists is that they lack technical training. They can make fine reports, but when it comes to showing a mother of six children how to care for a sick child, they fall down. One has to know more, in a practical way, than the manual of home nursing offers.

“I want to be able to go into a home and show a woman how to bathe the babies, how to prepare the bottles, how to make the beds and wash diapers quicker. It’s hardly an aristocratic conception, you see. There are a hundred things like that I’ve learned by nursing.”

“But when did you have time for all this?” Hamilton looked puzzled. “Two and a half years in training, two years over here, and a college course. You look like a college junior.”

Meadows blushed. “I’m older than you think, perhaps. But I used to be something of a child prodigy. I was fifteen when I graduated from high school and I did college in three years. So, you see, I’m not hopelessly old yet.”

“And when you get back?”

“Oh, there’s so much to do. Father and mother were shocked when I took up nursing and again when I left for France. But I think they’ve become reconciled. You see they expected me to fit smoothly into their little social scheme.”

Meadows sketched her career with illuminating, humorous sidelights.

Her first revolt had come when she insisted on entering the University of Wisconsin instead of an Eastern girls’ college and had elected to major in sociology, with economics as her minor. Shock two came when she turned down the bid of the Kappas—at that particular time the most desirable sorority—and denounced fraternities and sororities for their snobbishness before her “lit” society. Then she had joined the students’ Socialist society, taken part in organizing a daily newspaper that would be free from faculty control, and joined the staff of a monthly magazine, started in opposition to the Literary Magazine, for the purpose of supporting free verse, modernist literature and art and, principally, of poking fun at the conservatism of the professors.

“Of course, I’ve gotten over most of my enthusiasms,” she laughed. “It was simply a stage in my growth. But I’m still pretty radical, I guess, for my people—and for you. I’m not even a Socialist now, although at one time I was on the verge of anarchism and used to hear Emma Goldman every time she came to Madison. But, at least, I am a liberal.”

She suddenly broke off.

“But, of course, this doesn’t interest you. You’re probably wondering whether I’ve spoiled my complexion by going in for all these things instead of taking vocal lessons and—I was going to say French—but I’ve learned French at that. I’ll bet you’re wondering right now more how I managed to get through school so young without wearing glasses and looking like a freak.”

Hamilton started. It was exactly what he had been thinking.

He had been watching her lips and eyes as much as attending to her words. It was a dangerous game, he knew, but he was being carried along by a tide stronger than he could stem. Suddenly a bell tinkled, announcing the closing of the gates. It was growing dusk. Hamilton bent down and kissed her. She lifted her arms and raised her lips to his, and for as long as one can hold one’s breath they remained thus.

Arm in arm, they retraced their steps through the gardens of the Luxembourg. Other couples were walking similarly, singing, laughing. Through the gathering gray, lights were twinkling on the boulevard. They walked in silence. There were tears on her lashes.

XI

Hamilton did not see Dorothy again before leaving France, although he sent her a short note from camp announcing the good news. For on their return to their regiment, both Hamilton and McCall had found orders promoting them to captaincies. In reply Dorothy sent a note of congratulation.

To Margaret, Hamilton sent a longer letter and another to his parents. He was beginning to feel ashamed of his display of emotion toward Dorothy—ashamed and perplexed. He meant to marry Margaret as soon as he returned to America and he knew that the first principle of any system of ethics was fidelity—fidelity to one’s country, to one’s church, to the woman of one’s choice. Dorothy merely had interested him. True he had much for which he would always be deeply grateful to her. Yet there could be nothing more than friendship between them.

He did not even know Dorothy—had spoken to her intimately only twice. He had no idea whether her peculiar fascination for him would survive more frequent meetings, whether their brief friendship was anything more than a passing fancy. Why then had he kissed her?—if he really had kissed her. Sometimes it seemed like part of a dream.

Still, other men did it. One of the majors in the regiment, a married man, was always bragging about his exploits, not merely kissing episodes. Yet he continually referred to “the wife and kiddies” and expressed his longing for them. There might be an exception here and there, but practically every officer in the regiment practiced and preached the creed: “What they don’t know”—“they” referring to wives, fiancées and sweethearts—“won’t hurt ’em.” In civil life, Hamilton recalled, it had been the same.

Margaret was so obviously the woman intended for him. She had beauty, youth, the social graces and an assured social position. She would make an ideal wife and mother and grace any home. They had always moved in the same social circles; his friends were her friends. Their social conventions were the same. There would be no barriers to break down, no lessons to learn.

But after all a man didn’t love that way. One didn’t reason about such things. He loved her—just because he loved her. And he really did love Margaret. He had loved her when he was still in knickerbockers. He had loved her when he was going to prep school. He had loved her all those years in Harvard and since then.

Yet, in spite of this, Hamilton wondered whether he would now be engaged if it had not been for the sentimentalism attendant on leaving America to fight and possibly to die. He wondered whether she would have come to camp at the time when he was most susceptible, if she had not thought it a duty. Sometimes one’s motives were very complex. She had come because she thought it her duty to give him the opportunity to ask for all that she could give—her promise to marry him. And knowing why she had come, he had proposed out of a sense of gallantry. If he had not asked her it would be equivalent to jilting her.

But what difference did that make? He would have proposed to her eventually, anyway. In the end he would marry her.

The officers spent most of their time on board the Mauretania homeward bound in playing cards. It was early in March and still cold and foggy on deck.

“What’s worrying you?” said McCall to Hamilton, one night over the card table, after the other players had turned in for the night. McCall was dealing out “cold” hands as a fitting conclusion to the evening’s play. The cabin was thick with smoke.

“Worrying me?” Hamilton’s brows went up. “Nothing at all. I’m going to beat you again. Come on, deal me that king.”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean something else.”

“Why, do I look downhearted?”

“Sometimes, a little. Perhaps it’s my imagination. Perhaps it’s the getting back, the uncertainty. Sometimes I feel it. I wonder how I’ll be able to get back into the old life. I wonder if I’ll fit in.”

Hamilton laughed.

“I’ll fit in beautifully. I’ll sleep until noon every day for a year. I’ll take three baths a day—steam baths, cold baths, stingy shower baths. The rest of the day I’ll lie around the house in my most disreputable clothes, reading and sleeping.”

McCall stopped dealing the cards and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I won’t get up for any reveille, Hamilton, but I’m going to work when I get back.”

“Going to write the great American novel?”

“Oh, something like that. There’s one thing I’ve got out of the war. A theme—a thumping big theme for a novel. It’s the sense of our national unity. Before the war there used to be talk about America being a conglomeration of races. This war has proved for all time that we are a real nation, a single people, united so strongly by an ideal that we have been able to sacrifice everything in a common war with an enemy separated from us by three thousand miles of water. What other nation can show such a record?

“France was fighting for her life. Naturally she was united. Germany for an extension of her trade. England to oppose it and protect her own. Belgium had been invaded. Russia was afraid of losing her interest in the Balkans. All the other countries had economic or political interests one way or the other, and in the end they were fighting for their lives.

“But we had absolutely nothing tangible to fight for—nothing but an ideal, or set of ideals. Making the world safe for democracy may seem too simple a formula to explain the complex political and economic motives for our entering the war, but it was true in the main. As far as the soldiers were concerned, that’s exactly what they were fighting for—what we used to tell them at training camp. You didn’t find any difference in the courage or loyalty of your men, simply because of their parentage, did you?”

Hamilton considered.

“No. I don’t think so. I haven’t really thought it out. There might be an advantage in favor of one nationality or another—but it would probably be small. Of course, we got most of the lower east side element in our companies, a lot of little sweat-shop tailors, Jews. Most of them had probably never seen a rifle before in their lives. But they turned out surprisingly well. They’ve got intelligence.”

“Well, it’s this feeling of national unity I want to express. This unity we used to talk about in the training camps—that we used to instill into the men with their bayonet drill and manual of arms. This unity of America’s children, regardless of race or creed.”

“‘Long, too long, America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and prosperity only,

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not.

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en masse really are,

(For who except myself has yet conceived what your children en masse really are?)’”

“I see,” said Hamilton thoughtfully, “you want to show what America is en masse.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

He laid down the cards and ran his long, tapering fingers through his hair. Then he closed his eyes and began:

“‘Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon;

I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies;

I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks,

By the love of comrades—

By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!

For you, for you, I am trilling these songs.’”

For a moment they were silent. It was Hamilton who broke the silence.

“I’ve been feeling the same thing,” he said. “You know I’ve been brought up in the South. Ancestors lived in Georgia before Oglethorpe and all that.”

He waved his arm expressively. “And I suppose I’ve been something of a snob. All through the war I got to realizing it. But old ideas die hard. Take Williams, for instance, the nigger that saved my life. I wanted to thank him and yet I couldn’t. Something stuck in my throat. It was the same way when I saw him at the reception. I couldn’t stand seeing him there on a par with white men. It was the way I’d been brought up, I guess. Grandfather owned a hundred slaves.

“I don’t believe in social equality for the negro. I think the white man was destined to rule and the black to be ruled—don’t interrupt—still I’ve begun to see that the white man, we rulers, haven’t been doing the fair thing by the black. I wasn’t fair to Williams, and the South isn’t fair to its millions of Williams. We deprive them of an education, we don’t give them a fair trial in our courts. We don’t let them vote.

“It’s the same way with foreigners. I’ve been with them, slept with them, eaten with them, fought with them. Under the skin we’re all the same. The same elemental passions, the same hopes and fears. Not so much difference in culture as you’d think, except what’s due to difference in education.”

Hamilton went on eagerly, often incoherently, while McCall nodded his head in approval.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you talk like that,” he put in. “What’s happened to you?”

Hamilton pondered. “I suppose I’ve been coming to it gradually—and without realizing it. You know how those things go. You advocate an idea and then for the sake of consistency you keep advocating it.”

“Yes, I understand. It’s what I always call ‘mental inertia.’”

“Mental or moral inertia, that’s it. The inertia that one has to overcome in order to change an opinion—the subconscious prejudices and reactions, the fear of being thought inconsistent, all that. When I first learned that the universe had not been created in seven days—that is, seven days of twenty-four hours each—I fought against it. I didn’t want to believe it. A rational being would obviously weigh the facts coldly and dispassionately and then arrive at a conclusion. But it took me a long time to accept the fact that the earth is millions of years old.”

“Oh, that’s the way with all new ideas,” McCall fished a cigarette box out of his pocket, passed it over to Hamilton and selected a cigarette himself. “Hand me the matches. Nobody wants a new idea, until it’s forced on him, including, of course, Christianity. The man with a new idea—whether it’s a new religious philosophy, a new system of government, a new way of painting, a new way of writing, a new invention—is hooted down in the church, the school or the market-place. About the best thing that can happen to any innovator is to die of hunger in an attic. You know that old saw about building a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door. Emerson was all wrong. Now if you take a standard, common, ordinary mouse trap and open a stand on Fifth Avenue and Broadway or on State and Madison Streets and advertise Hamilton Mouse Traps consistently, you will get the world to use them. But, believe me, if you retreat to a wood and spend twenty years in studying the weaknesses of mice and inventing an entirely new trap for their ensnarement, you will stick in that same wood until travelers find your body devoured by the squirrels. Nobody will buy your better mouse trap. Why? Simply because it’s a different kind of mouse trap than anyone has used before—unless you spend time and effort showing him that it is better.”

“Yes, I suppose we’re all like that. We hate change. Our engineers study means of reducing friction, overcoming inertia, when the most important inertia is in our minds.”

They paused and remained silent for a moment, puffing reflectively on their cigarettes.

“I’ll tell you what has set me thinking,” said Hamilton at length, laying his cigarette down. “No, thanks, no more. Some one I met in Paris. Of course, all this time, all these two years, my ideas had been changing gradually. Did you ever study physics? You know how it is when you have a salt in solution and you try to crystallize it; you have the proper solution, the temperature is correct, but nothing happens until you give it a little jar. I suppose that jar offsets some sort of inertia—the inertia of form.

“Well, my jar came by my contact with some one. All the time my ideas had been changing subconsciously. I had been piling up new impressions. But I still continued to reason along old lines. Then I came in contact with some one who had given up a life of—well, the sort of life I had planned—for one of service. I’ve always been an egoist. I’ve always sneered at reformers and idealists. But here was a person whose motives were so obviously different from anything I had ever encountered that my mind was jarred. I didn’t know it at the time. I wonder how many revelations are discovered after they actually take place? It sounds like a paradox.”

“Aha, so another woman has come into your life!” McCall grinned and lit a fresh cigarette.

“Woman?”

“Certainly! She’s given you this little jar—set you thinking.”

“I didn’t say it was a woman.”

“But you didn’t say it wasn’t. Which amounts to the same thing. If it had been a man you would have said Major Jinks, or Dr. Levin, or Peter Smith or whoever it was. You wouldn’t say ‘some one’ all the time.”

“You are right,” said Hamilton, at length. “Let’s open a door and get some of this smoke out before we turn in. Miss Meadows has set me thinking. But you know what I think—”

“No.”

“I’m going down to Corinth first thing and get married.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. You’ve been engaged long enough. Ever since we were at Camp Mills. Best of luck, old man.”

Hamilton was disappointed. He had thought that the announcement would surprise McCall. It had surprised himself. He had suddenly expressed his intention aloud. Was it to commit himself to making a decision? He was in love with Margaret. He wished to be united with her irrevocably. He wished that there be no doubt in his mind about it. There really was no reason, after all, why McCall should be surprised. He had expected it right along. Hamilton wondered why he should wish to pledge himself to marry Margaret, and why he should take this means of proclaiming his intention. He wondered whether McCall would think it odd, or whether he thought about it at all.

“Well, two more days and we’ll see land,” said McCall, as he hopped into bed. “Just think, one more night after this, then home again! No more reveille. No more trenches. No more slumgullion. No more rain. Whee! We really ought to get drunk!” Hamilton agreed and slowly prepared for bed.

XII

There was much drinking the next night, Hamilton acquitting himself like a gentleman—that is, imbibing large quantities without perceptible effect—and McCall like a zealot.

“Ought to get drunk. Ought to get drunk.” McCall kept repeating. “Last chance on the bounding, boundless Atlantic.”

McCall went on explaining his philosophy of intoxication between swallows.

“This is occasion that demands intoxication,” he said. “Demands intoxication, like poet demands fine frenzy with his eye rolling between heaven and earth and hell, or something.

“When you’re not drunk, Hamilton, you’re bundled with clothes—pants, shoes, coat, fur coat, gloves, silk hat. They’re your conventions, your inhibitions, your prohibitions—hooray for Bryan! You can’t embrace occasion with clothes on—shoes, hats, coats, overcoat, pants. Got to get rid of ’em, boys, got to get rid of ’em! Civilized man’s got too many clothes. How’s he going to do it? How’s he going to do it, boys?”

McCall went gravely from one to the other, repeating his question. Nobody was listening. Every one was laughing extravagantly, except the sentimental major, who was weeping over his wife and kiddies. A captain and a second lieutenant were trying vainly to comfort him. Two captains were telling funny stories at the same time. Another group was singing songs. Hamilton was laughing loudly at all of them because he was the only man sober.

“I’ll tell you how to get rid of your clothes,” McCall held up a whiskey bottle and waxed oratorical. “Civilized man got solution right here, in little bottle with removable cork. Get drunk! Then all conventions, all restraints disappear like the dew before a midday sun, like dew on desert’s dusty face, like dew—well, anyway like dew!

“When you’re drunk, you’re free. You’re free like gilded bird let out of cage, or bird out of gilded cage. Your mind is free. Your soul is free of its trammels. Who wants to wear trammels anyway? Down with trammels. The fetters on your mind—the restraints, the conventions are removed like buttons from pair trousers. One drink and you remove the yoke from your neck.”

He unbuttoned his blouse, untied the white collar about his neck and flung it to the floor.

“You remove strait-jacket of liberties.”

He wriggled out of his tight coat and flung it on one of the berths.

“You remove shirt of Nessus.”

Swish, his shirt came off.

“You practice sabotage against moralities.”

His putties and shoes went clattering on the floor.

“Now look at me. A free man. A symbol of released spirit. A symbol—I say I’m a symbol. Listen to me syming—sym; sym, sym, sym, sym.”

He began beating a rhythm against the table with his bottle.

“I’m a symbol—”

“He’s a dumb-bell!” some one else shouted. “Put some clothes on the idiot.”

The next minute the symbol of man’s freedom from restrictions was being wrapped in a blanket and deposited in a berth, still protesting, in a voice growing feebler and feebler, his symbolism by a series of sym, sym, syms.

A few hours later, Hamilton was standing at the bow of the ocean liner, drinking in deep draughts of the cool air and peering through the gray fog. Far away, on the horizon, the cloud seemed blacker. The sun was just beginning to rise in the vessel’s wake, throwing huge shadows ahead. All about him other men were peering through the mist. There was an air of excitement, of eagerness and of expectation. There was a subdued buzz of conversation, through which brisk orders and the bustle of the sailors sounded. As it grew lighter, Hamilton saw men crowding the rails, in life-boats, swarming along the rigging, everywhere. It was vain to try to keep the land men in their place. There were heads at every port hole.

Hamilton’s eyes had become tired from peering into the west and from lack of sleep and he had fallen into a sort of doze. Battle scenes, pictures of Margaret, the hospital, training camp, were jumbled in his brain. He was happy and yet vaguely dissatisfied. He wondered whether any one would be at the pier to meet him. He wondered whether Margaret would be there and what she would say when they met. Would his father be there?

He wondered whether he would ever see Dorothy again. The unit to which Dorothy belonged had returned to America three weeks ago. Dr. Levin had returned on the same ship and, undoubtedly by this time, had gotten his discharge. Before leaving he had written Hamilton, telling him that he meant to spend a few weeks in New York before returning to Chicago. He had given his address at a hotel on Fifth Avenue, near Central Park, and had urged Hamilton and McCall to visit him there at their first opportunity. It would be good to see him again, perhaps spend a night or two together, as they had in Paris.

Hamilton aroused himself. The sun was growing warmer and brighter and—suddenly on the horizon, still far away, loomed New York—a shadowy mass out of which tall, slender towers aspired to the sky. Glittering Gothic cathedrals of a race of giants. Gigantic fairy palaces. And there, gleaming in the morning sunlight, a symbolic figure with torch extended.

Hamilton had come home again. Home to the land of Liberty, home to the land which had given lavishly of its treasure, of its very flesh and blood to bring a new conception of liberty and democracy to the old world. A fresh, strong, triumphant country, throwing spires of steel and huge smoke-stacks into the air, spanning rivers, tunnelling through mountains, girding waterfalls, building cities and binding them by bands of steel. The young giant among nations, deep-chested, long-limbed, athletic; the clean-minded, hard-fisted champion of democracy. The champion of down-trodden races and peoples. The one nation without a selfish claim at the peace conference. Hamilton felt proud that he was an American.

The morning dragged in routine. Tasks—roll calls, sick reports, personnel reports, final inspections. Hamilton made a little speech to his men, cautioning them to behave as soldiers even though they had returned, emphasizing certain instructions in regard to debarkation—the order in which they were to leave, how they were to entrain, and so forth. But principally he thanked them for their loyalty and expressed the conviction that they would continue to practise the lessons that they had all learned in the war—himself included, the unity of the nation, its strength, physical and moral, because it was a nation composed of many different human elements. A nation where each man was a citizen like any other man in spite of differences in race, color and religion.

At the close of his talk, a little Jewish corporal came up to him, saluted and asked timidly if he could shake his hand. Hamilton extended his hand with a smile.

“You know, captain,” the corporal’s eyes blinked with happiness, “I absolutely didn’t know it was in you. I thought, you’ll pardon me, captain, you was a damn fine officer, but a stuck-upper. Now, I see my mistake. It was all the time you was playing a game like—so we’d be better soldiers.”

Emboldened by the corporal, an Italian, who ran a fruit stand two years ago, came up and shook hands warmly.

“Eet is vairy fine,” he said in his broken English. “That feeling you express. I feel it too, down here. We one, big, fine people. We all fight togaither. No wop. No dago. All Americains now!”

Hamilton gulped.

“That’s exactly so, Marco. We’re all Americans. We’ve all earned the right to be called that now.”

He looked about at the other men. Some were too bashful to come forward. They stood back, with something like awe and gladness in their eyes. Others crowded around him in little groups. Here was a Greek, who had left a shoe shine stand to enter the war, and had been cited twice for bravery. Here was a Slav, who had probably dug ditches since coming to America and, in spite of the difficulties of mastering a foreign language, had become a corporal. Here was an Essex street tailor who had won the Croix de Guerre.

He studied their faces. They were the faces of men who had always worked hard, mostly with their hands, and who still had met the test on the field of battle, in the gentleman’s job of fighting.

Here was a German baker, a Hungarian waiter, a Polish truck driver. Here were Gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics; a few men from northern Europe, blue eyed, with long skulls; some Slavs with high cheek bones and round heads; but mostly brown-eyed men from southern Europe, and Jews. Men of the east side of New York—unskilled laborers, clerks, milk-wagon drivers, elevator operators. Men from all the uninteresting and useful occupations of New York.

The last task had been done, the men were dressed and packed and excitedly crowding every available spot on the ship from which they could see land. The ship rocked with shouts and cheers. Men were singing songs about their companies and cities; sentimental songs, marching songs. Jokes flew back and forth. College yells, modified to suit States and regiments, rose. Cheers for individual officers. Hamilton heard a three times three for him that sounded familiarly like the yell the bleachers had given him the day he was carried off the field with the broken nose.

They had passed quarantine and were being tugged up the Hudson, with a score of smaller boats—tugs and launches draped in bunting—forming an escort. On the boats were huge canvas and cardboard signs of welcome. On the decks of the welcoming ships, along the shore, from every window and on the roofs of the towering skyscrapers thousands of men, women and children were waving bright flags and banners, throwing clouds of confetti and serpentines of paper. Gay flags and strips of bunting flamed from the buildings.

The band on the Mauretania struck up a tune. Bands on the shores played. Whistles and sirens screamed, bells rang. Voices shouted songs and words of welcome. The mingled sounds rose and fell in tremendous surges. It was New York’s welcome.

On the tugs men were shouting through megaphones: “Is Jack Butler, of Company E, there? His mother welcomes him.” “Hello Bill!” The men on the ship shouted their answers in chorus.

“Is Dick Blackwell on board?” This time there was no answer. The men looked at each other, their faces suddenly red. Dick was not on board. He had made the supreme sacrifice and now lay on the field of glory somewhere in France.

His name had appeared on the casualty list, but someone had refused to believe it until the last.

Now they had passed the Battery and its cheering thousands and were being swung about to the pier in Hoboken. On the Jersey shore—new bands of music, new flags and banners, new thousands of waving, exultant human beings.

The band strikes up “Home, Sweet Home”; cheering, laughing and singing suddenly die down. A new look of wistfulness steals into the men’s eyes. No one trusts himself to look at his neighbor. There is a murmur of suppressed sobbing. The ecstacy of a common happiness is gone. Each is carried to his own little world of memory, of joy or sorrow. But the next minute the band is blaring out “How Dry I Am,” and everyone is laughing, cheering and beginning to sing uproariously. A few minutes later the ship touches the side of the pier. They are back again. It is noon.

Hamilton was watching the reception committee coming on board—first the general in charge of the port of debarkation, a magnificent but pathetic figure (he had made many fruitless efforts to be sent overseas, but had always been turned down because of age or some other unknown reason). Beside him walked the mayor of New York, all smiles. Then a group of officers—generals and colonels. Next, other city and state officials. Then a delegation of congressmen and prominent citizens and, suddenly, among them, Hamilton’s father—a tall, slender man in the fifties, with aristocratic iron-gray hair and blue eyes, arched brows, gray moustache and goatee. A little thinner and paler than he had appeared two years ago, Hamilton thought in that first whirl of oversweeping emotions.

He longed to cry out to his father, but instead he stood peering over the rail motionless. A hundred questions rushed into his mind—questions about his old life, about his father’s health, about his mother, about the home, about the servants, about persons he had known. Would he appear changed to his father? A flood of old emotions, associations long forgotten, vague anxieties, swept over him.

He felt strangely aloof, far away, a stranger among familiar things, one returned to a once familiar land that has somehow become foreign.

Suddenly he was a child again, with an absurd wish to cry—in spite of the cheers and songs and band music all about him. He had started to run away from Corinth on his white pony, became frightened and homesick and galloped back home to fling himself into his father’s arms.

The next moment Robert was elbowing his way to the companionway and down the stairs.

XIII

It was the second week of their stay at Camp Mills. Robert’s father had returned to Corinth on the third day after the return of the troops. He had come with the idea of bringing Robert home with him, having forgotten in his enthusiasm that the troops would first have to be discharged. Father and son had spent an evening in New York, dining together at the hotel, strolling leisurely down Fifth Avenue, visiting several cafés, principally talking. There were a thousand questions to ask and a thousand answers to make.

Hamilton was packing things into a wooden box, when McCall came running into the room.

“What’re you doing?” asked McCall. “Want a hand? Oh, I see, packing away the relics of the World War to show your children and your children’s children.”

“That’s right,” said Hamilton, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “Hand me that gas mask! That’s it. Now for the books. Some I had with me. The rest I picked up in Paris.”

“What’s the idea of packing now? You don’t expect to get out so soon, do you?”

“Oh, I might as well do it now. Get it over with. All right, now give me that hammer.”

“Have you seen the new order?” asked McCall. “What do you think of applying for appointment to the regular army?”

“Do I look crazy?” He savagely hammered the last nail into position and arose. “Now, that’s over.”

“But there are some fellows who have applied.” McCall stretched himself on the bunk and hunched up his knees comfortably. “There’s McMasters and Dowling. And I’ve been undecided about it.”

“What? I thought you were going to write a novel or something. Going to get down to work.”

“Now that it’s so near I’m getting cold feet. I don’t know if I can work. That is, do civilian work. Write any more. You know how blamed thick competition is on a newspaper anyway. I don’t know if I could hold a job. Oh, I suppose I could, but in the army there’s no uncertainty. As long as the government lasts you draw your pay check.”

“Of all the idiots, McCall, you’re the biggest. You’ve been working too hard on your service records. What do you say to breaking away tonight? We can catch the five o’clock train and get to New York in time to look up Levin. I’ve got his address you know, and the old bird will be glad to see us.”

“All right. All right. We’ve got almost an hour yet. I’ll get dressed and call for you and we can check out together.”

McCall lit a cigarette, puffed silently for a few minutes and left.

When a voice over the telephone announced that it was General Pershing talking and wanting to know why the devil he hadn’t turned in all his Hinkle pills and iodine, and wanting to know where the devil all the spiritus frumenti had disappeared to, Dr. Levin immediately recognized that it was McCall.

“All right, general,” he said, “as soon as I get through prescribing some pills for Marshall Foch. Where are you? In the lobby? Hamilton with you? Fine. Come right up, general.”

Hamilton and McCall burst into the room two minutes later and found a changed Levin—a Levin in civilian clothes, surprisingly dignified and taller than they had remembered.

“Don’t stare,” said Levin genially. “It’s just my clothes. I never could wear a uniform. How in the world have you been?”

They shook hands warmly, exchanged greetings and then found seats on the bed. There was a cheerful exchange of cigarettes and questions and exclamations of how glad they were to be back.

“I wish you’d examine McCall’s cranium,” said Hamilton, blowing a smoke wreath toward the ceiling, as he lay back on the bed. “He’s talking about entering the regular army, pardon me, the regular establishment.”

“Oh, I was just thinking about it. Nothing certain,” said McCall.

“One would think,” remarked Dr. Levin, rubbing a thoughtful hand over his chin. “One would think that your experiences in the World War would be a sufficient antidote. But—”

His brows wrinkled. “How can you? I mean physically. You couldn’t pass the examination.”

“I thought they’d let me in because I’d been wounded in the war. Give me a staff job or something. I’ve got a pretty good record, you know. Got the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Cross. But—oh, well, I didn’t really intend to apply for a commission in the regular army. Just putting off making a decision as to what I’m going to do when I get out. If you apply, they keep you in longer.”

Dr. Levin chucked a pillow at McCall, and Hamilton, following the cue, rumpled his hair.

“What are we going to do with this gloom?” Dr. Levin appealed. “Let’s take him out and show him the city.”

McCall laughed. “I’m not gloomy. Just thirsty. Let’s go!”

“Just a minute,” laughed Dr. Levin. “I do things methodically. Let’s draw up an itinerary. Where are we going?”

“What’s the difference where we go?” suggested McCall. “The main thing is to go. We’ll charter a taxi and make the rounds.”

“I think,” said Levin aside to Hamilton, as they were pulling on their coats, “that something’s worrying McCall. Has he a sweetheart in Paris?”

“Nonsense,” said Hamilton. “Wouldn’t he have told me?”

“Oh, of course, they always do, don’t they? Whenever a man falls in love he runs around announcing the news. Most of the time the man hasn’t any idea that he is in love.”

McCall, after flicking his shoes with a towel, joined them and they started off together.

They began with the Little Club and champagne and ended with Reisenwebers and gin fizzes.

With the first drink, McCall seemed to recover his spirits.

“On his third glass he usually begins to quote Walt Whitman,” said Hamilton.

“Well, I’ve seen many worse effects of drink,” Dr. Levin’s eyes twinkled.

“But not much worse, eh?” said McCall. “Well, anyway, I wish Whitman could take a look at this,” McCall made a slight gesture with his hand. “I wonder what he’d say about Manhattan and democracy.”

“I suppose we need a Whitman now,” said Dr. Levin. “We’ve just gone through another Civil War—the Civil War of the white race. It needs a poet, a Whitman to sing the new ideal of democracy.”

“I think the war has brought about a new appreciation of democracy,” said Hamilton.

“You’re right,” added McCall. “The war has put an end to imperialism. The Kaiser is crushed. Germany is a republic. The little countries of middle Europe are independent. But especially to Russia do the real democrats of the world turn their eyes. I think that even Great Britain will have to give Ireland its freedom and relinquish its hold on the oppressed brown races—the Hindus and the Persians.”

Dr. Levin shook his head. “You ought to be right, but you aren’t. The war has set back democracy. Europe will be split into fifty little states, all wrangling over boundary lines, over seaports, over tariffs, over a hundred and one things. Politically, Europe will be back in the middle ages, while economically it is in the twentieth century.”

The crowning heresy to McCall and Hamilton came when Levin proclaimed Bismarck a greater statesman than Wilson, because he unified Europe, while Wilson divided it.

“At any rate,” said Hamilton at length, “we three are united by a common love of our country and by certain common ideals. We may not agree as to whether the war has brought those ideals any closer to humanity or not, although personally I think it has. But we do know that these ideals are ours—America’s.”

“Yes,” said Levin, “and we are a little cross-section of America—Catholic, Protestant and Jew—but an unusual cross-section. Wait until you see the reaction in this country. The Italians are crying for Italia Irredenta and Italy for the Italians. Poland is crying Poland for the Poles. And the hundred per cent Americans have already begun raising the same cry here. Of course, we’ve missed them while we were in France; but the hundred per centers were the men back home that kept the homefires of hatred burning—painting yellow signs on German bakers who didn’t invest a certain quota of their savings in Liberty bonds, boycotting Hungarian restaurants, refusing to eat German fried potatoes or listen to Wagner—stupid things like that. But there were more important things, too, deprivation of the right of free speech and assembly, and suppression of newspapers.”

Hamilton remembered some of the letters Margaret had written.

“Well, wasn’t it necessary to protect the country at home from disaffection?”

“In certain cases it was, certainly,” said Levin. “But in many cases—I won’t say ‘most,’ it wasn’t. That sort of thing grows. It becomes a passion, a religion, like Sadism, of inflicting punishment. Psychopathically it has an interesting explanation. Politically it is dangerous. There is no doubt that many persons derive keen pleasure in hurting others. And the war has stirred them up.

“At first this intolerance is fairly reasonable—it makes powerless the enemies of the government in the prosecution of war. Which is as it should be. Then it becomes ingrown. Instead of imprisoning traitors as they arise, people begin to stir them up so that they may satisfy the pleasure of imprisoning. Men begin to watch their neighbor for slips from the patriotic code. A patriot must do this thing and that and refrain from the other. There may be five hundred different kinds of patriots in actuality—just as we three represent three different points of view and political philosophy. But the hundred per center can understand only one kind—his own.

“He is a Republican—I am myself, by the way—so when he finds an Anarchist he has him jugged. It makes no difference whether he be a philosophic Anarchist, a follower of Kropotkin, a man who is a vegetarian by principle and has a Brahministic horror of shedding of blood—he is placed in the same cell with the brute who was caught placing a bomb under the railroad bridge. Socialists, Communists, I. W. W.’s, sympathizers with the present Russian government—all, in some way different from the hundred per centers—are regarded as enemies of America. Even liberals and progressives are viewed with suspicion.

“By January the country’s going dry. The same bigots who have been denying the rights that the Constitution guarantees every citizen in a misguided effort to protect that Constitution, will be denouncing people who prefer to drink cocktails instead of grape juice, as un-American. Next it will be people who don’t belong to their race and then, to their church.”

“No, never!” Hamilton interrupted. “This isn’t Russia. America is too sensible.”

“I’m Russian by parentage, you know,” said Dr. Levin. “The race riots there, the pogroms, were also supposed to be patriotic. It was always the hundred per cent Russians who incited the hooligans to riot. Imagine that! The officials who were living corrupt lives, looting the public treasury, depriving the soldiers and sailors of food and ammunition to swell their own fortunes, those were the ones who always cried Russia for the Russians. In the name of patriotism they not only killed the Jews, but imprisoned, exiled and killed the real patriots, who were working for a republic. You see it always starts with patriotism. And in Russia the idea of religion was mixed in with it. Those who don’t believe as you do are not only enemies of the state, but also of Christ. The victims of the plunderers and murderers become anti-Christs. It’s ironic.”

“I think that’s just a wild dream of yours. But whatever happens”—he raised a glass of champagne—“here’s to our friendship, born of the war to make the world safe for democracy.”

He proposed the toast jocularly, but it symbolized the moment and they drank, almost seriously.

XIV

At the Century roof garden they sat back and watched the spectacle critically.

“It hasn’t the verve of a Paris performance,” remarked McCall.

“Verve—you mean nerve,” replied Hamilton. “But the cocktails are there. Anyway, I like this better.”

“That’s because you’re a Puritan. In Paris you were always being shocked by the exhibitions.” McCall winked at Dr. Levin, who was listening with a smile on his face.

“Ah, yes, a Puritan who drinks cocktails. I don’t mind an exhibition of legs, if they’re good legs—as these are. But in Paris they went too far. Legs were a mere starter. Whenever a person exhibits a moral impulse, you accuse him of being a Puritan.”

“Exactly,” said McCall. “You don’t expect me to call you a goddam prude in company. A person has to be polite. Puritan is merely a euphuism.”

They argued genially for a while and then appealed to Dr. Levin.

“As usual, you are both wrong—and both right,” said Levin, lighting a cigarette. “McCall is a poet and a symbolist. In what to you, Hamilton, would be a shocking disregard of the morals, and to me a mere display of the umbilical region, becomes in McCall’s mind a symbol of freedom, of art, of life. But we’ve sat here almost an hour and it’s time to be moving.”

At the Moulin Rouge, dimly lighted, with soft lights and women’s gowns and jewels glowing subduedly, McCall passed into a sentimental mood.

“Want to hear a little poem I wrote? Wrote it to the sweetest little girl in the world, wrote it on the back of an old envelope one day in the hospital.”

McCall was having difficulty with his “l’s.” A woman with seductive arms and eyes leaned over to him from the next table and smiled, while her escort was fumbling in his pockets for some change.

“She’s the sweetest little girl in the world and I’ll never see her again—never.”

“What’s the matter? A lover’s quarrel?” asked Levin.

“No.” Morosely.

“Where’d you meet her?” asked Hamilton. “That’s a new one on me. Paris?”

McCall nodded. He sipped a highball, ran his fingers through his hair and began in a low, vibrant voice, his handsome boyish face flushed.

“The agèd pilgrim hastens on the road,
Nor stops to pluck the flowers by the way
Lest Death o’ertake him ’ere the close of day

And find, too late, unreached the soul’s abode.

“I, too, a pilgrim, love, with quick foot strode

Along Life’s highway: Often would I stay

To live a blissful hour, forever. ‘Nay.

On, on!’ cries Time, and smites with painful goad.

“They say though, that before the soul is fled

From this frail house, old Time, turned kind, will bring,

In outstretched arms, those happy hours long dead—

A sheaf of golden moments spent with thee,
The tender blossoms of our hopeful spring
And, here and there, a scarlet memory.”

McCall’s voice stopped. His long, slender fingers went forward across the table and he sat staring down in front of him. A waiter who had been standing near-by in respectful silence, coughed. The lady at the next table, looking haughtily ahead, swept by with her escort.

“It’s very pretty,” said Hamilton after a moment.

“Yes, I like it,” added Levin. Then with apparent irrelevance, “I suppose you know that Miss Meadows is here, in New York.”

Hamilton betrayed his eagerness in a look.

“No, where is she?”

McCall was still staring at the table.

“She’s staying with a party of Red Cross nurses. Her parents met her in New York, but went back alone. Of course you’ll call on her. I know she’d be glad to see you.”

They walked out of the room together, McCall between them, still absorbed in thought. His mood changed, however, at Reisenweber’s. Opposite them sat a fat man in full-dress, with a chorus girl upon each knee.

He was frankly hugging them and they were as frankly pulling greenbacks out of his pockets and tucking them into their stockings, conveniently rolled.

“Here’s civilization in America at its highest,” said Levin cynically. “The fat man is a manufacturer who has been yelling against the Bolsheviki for destroying the home. He’s a bitter opponent of free love.”

McCall laughed.

“Well, why shouldn’t he be opposed to free love? He has to pay for it, doesn’t he? He looks like a picture by Hogarth—a picture in the Rake’s Progress. Only Death ought to be lurking somewhere about.”

“Oh, he is,” said Levin, “although you can’t see him. Life doesn’t reveal its spectres until the right moment. But we’re all too introspective. A cabaret is frankly a place for enjoyment. We ought to dance.”

“I’d rather just look on,” said Hamilton.

“And I’m going to dance,” said McCall. “Watch me!”

He lurched unsteadily past the fat man and his odalisques to a table where two dazzling blondes—a peroxide and a henna—sat waiting. The next minute he was fox-trotting with the peroxide blonde. The fat man and the two girls rose and went laughing and swaying out of the door. Another officer sat down with the henna blonde. A couple walked by, the woman’s black eyes beckoning to Hamilton, while her escort was looking the other way. The waiter yawned. Hamilton looked at his watch.

“Wow, it’s after three! We’ll have to catch the four o’clock to make reveille and then we won’t get any sleep.”

“Do you still have to stand reveille?” asked Levin.

“Oh, I’ve got a couple of shavetails who take turns at standing it with the company—and for all I know they may leave it to the top-sergeant. But our major’s a little fussy. Doesn’t know the war’s over, and he might kick.”

“Well, you get McCall, and in the meantime I’ll order a round of coffees. That’ll keep you awake until reveille, and then you can sleep.”

Hamilton found McCall making arrangements with the lady in henna, the other officer and the peroxide blonde to visit a little apartment uptown, but dragged him away. McCall refused to drink his coffee, but finally consented to leave and walked out between them to the taxi.

They drove to the Pennsylvania station and Levin saw them to the gates leading to their track.

“Let’s see, what was that address?” asked Hamilton.

“Miss Meadows? Here it is. Better write it down. Got a pencil? All right. Well, so long. Look me up again. Come to see me when you’re in Chicago. Good-night, McCall.”

XV

Hamilton was lying leisurely on his bed, smoking a cigarette and reading a letter from Margaret, when McCall burst into the room.

“Got my order! Got my order!” he shouted, waving a slip of paper. “Hooray! Kaloo! Kalay! Come on, Hamilton, help me pack.”

“Gee, great stuff!” said Hamilton, jumping up. “When did it come?”

“Just now! Hooray! I haven’t packed a thing. I’m going to take my physical exam at eleven and catch the noon train, if I can. It’s half-past nine now.”

“Have you signed your statement that you’re free from indebtedness?”

“Almost forgot. But I can do it and make the train, anyway. Come on, old top, give me a lift!”

Together they hurried out of the room and down the row of wooden barracks. McCall was talking excitedly.

“No more of these damned barracks, all looking alike,” he said. “That’s the worst thing about the camp. Every blamed building looks like every other building. If they’d only make one a little longer than the other. Or even get the lines crooked. Or paint ’em.”

In McCall’s room they found two privates folding an iron cot.

“That’s right, boys. Get all this junk out and sweep the floor when you get through. Here’s a couple of uniforms I won’t need any more. Want ’em? Fine! And here’s a pair of putts. I’ll see you in the office again before I go.”

The soldiers saluted with a relaxed stiffness and broad grins on their faces, turned on their heels and walked out.

“Why did you want to give away your uniforms and putts?” asked Hamilton. “You can use ’em for riding or camping, you know.”

“Riding or camping? Here, hand me those shaving things off that shelf. When do you think I’ll have a chance to go riding? If they ever send me on an assignment where I’ll need putts—such as covering another war—I’ll buy a pair. But, of course, there won’t be any more wars. Let’s see, where’ll I put my socks?”

Hamilton was removing articles from a wooden shelf that extended over the foot of the bed—a few photographs, books, stationery, brush, comb, a soap box, a tobacco pouch, a shoe brush and some face towels. As he picked up one of the volumes, a snapshot, which had been kept between the leaves, fluttered down upon the floor and Hamilton stooped to recover it. It was Dorothy Meadows, standing at the entrance to the hospital in Paris—Dorothy in her nurse’s cloak and bonnet, smiling at him. McCall looked up from his packing.

“What is that?” he asked. “Oh, one of my snapshots.”

“Where’d you get this?” asked Hamilton, his face red from bending.

“In Paris. Took it with her camera. You know she’s been an angel of mercy to us, Hamilton.”

Hamilton’s mind went back to the New York cabaret, where McCall had sat reciting poetry with shining eyes, and an emotion strangely like that of jealousy seized him. He thought of their walk in Luxembourg gardens. Of course it could not be jealousy. Still the feeling persisted and he hardly heard what McCall was saying. If he had not been in love with Margaret, this feeling would be understandable. As it was, it was fantastic. Perhaps McCall had not written the poem to Dorothy.

“Got to get transportation,” said McCall, standing up, after the last strap had been tightened and the last lock turned. “I’ll call up the supply department. Come on!”

They rushed out to the Y. M. C. A., where the nearest telephone was, and McCall disappeared into the booth. He reappeared a few minutes later.

“Sending for it right away. Let’s go back.”

A few minutes later a truck appeared and McCall’s locker trunks and bedding roll were being loaded into it. It seemed very strange. For almost two years they had been together. In the same company at Plattsburg, where they had gotten their commissions together; in the same company at Camp Eustis, where they had drilled rookies; in the same company in France, until casualties had placed each in charge of his own company. They had received their promotions to first lieutenancies and to captaincies on the same day. They had studied together and fought together. Side by side they had stood in muddy trenches. They had tasted the same dangers and hardships, the same hopes and anxieties, the same enthusiasms and pleasures. Now they were to be separated.

McCall was going back to Chicago. In a few days Hamilton was going back to Corinth—and then what would become of their friendship? Parting would sever something from Hamilton’s life. Yes, life was that, a meeting and a parting. One made friends, built up a community of interests, and then the friend moved away or died or grew up into a different being. The next time they met, Hamilton might be engrossed in something else—possibly the details of the Hamilton enterprises and, as conceivably, McCall would be engrossed in his work.

Hamilton had met old schoolmates like that—boys with whom he played football at prep school, boys with whom he had gone on larks, even members of the same club at Harvard. For a few minutes they were always glad to see each other. They recalled old memories. They asked about old friends, almost forgotten, whom neither had seen again. Then they suddenly discovered that they were both bored. Each had his own interests, had become a strange being. It was difficult to pick up old friendships where one had left off.

McCall was chattering on happily:

“There’s a hundred things to do to get away from camp. Coming down with me to the Q. M.’s? I’ll tell you; you be in your room and as soon as I get through I’ll drop in again.”

McCall was swinging rapidly down the road, stopping now and then to shake hands with friends, or to shout “good-bye” excitedly across the road. Hamilton returned to his room. Everything was in order, in case his discharge should come. He could pack within fifteen minutes. He idly went over some reports, ran a brush over his shoes and puttees, and lay down again on his bed. He loosened his coat, took out his letter from Margaret and reread it. Margaret was to sing before the Daughters of the Confederacy and had just been appointed on a committee to welcome the returning soldiers.

Hamilton was dozing away comfortably when McCall burst into the door, a suitcase in either hand.

“Well, so long, Hamilton, I’m going.”

“Just a minute, I’ll go down with you.” Hamilton sprang to his feet.

“Only ten minutes left. All right, your coat’s all right.”

Hamilton took one of the suitcases and together they rushed out of the barracks. They hailed a Q. M. truck, loaded the suitcases onto it, and crowded into the seat next to the driver. At the station stood little knots of soldiers and officers waiting for the train. There was much laughing and talking, buying of newspapers and candy bars at the counters, and a crush at the ticket and baggage offices.

The train was here. Every one made a rush for the door. Last farewells were said, last addresses exchanged. McCall was waving his arms and shaking hands with everyone. There was no time for even a last word. Hamilton wished to say something—something about their friendship, something about the saving of his life in France. But it was too late. McCall was being pushed forward to the train. He found a seat next to the window, opened it and shouted: “So long!” The next minute the train started, the cheering and laughing mingled with the noise of the locomotive gaining momentum, the waving arms and grinning faces receded in the distance.

Hamilton wondered when he would go home, looked around and walked back to his barrack alone.

XVI

Hamilton’s discharge came late the next day and he decided to leave the following morning. He made the rounds of his most intimate friends, wrote a few letters and retired early. He would reach New York by noon, spend the day there, so as to avoid traveling by day as much as possible, and leave at six o’clock for Washington. He would have time to visit the office of the Hamilton Company, see Levin and perhaps even call up Dorothy.

Hamilton left earlier than he had expected and reached New York at eleven o’clock. The city was still in gala mood. There was a committee of women to meet the soldiers with coffee and doughnuts. Hamilton had breakfasted well in camp and expected to eat luncheon shortly, but out of consideration for the plump blonde chairwoman, he managed to gulp down the doughnut and coffee and thank her profusely. A slender, dark girl, evidently Jewish, gave him a package of cigarettes. Hamilton noticed that most of the soldiers, although they had been stuffing on peanut candy and chocolate bars all the way from camp, also took their doughnuts and coffee dutifully.

The streets were still decorated with flags, bunting and signs welcoming the returning soldiers. The many uniforms on the streets, while not enjoying the popularity of a month ago, had not yet become objects of odium. Women, and a few men, still looked with sympathy at soldiers who limped about on crutches or walked about minus an arm.

Hamilton walked leisurely up Broadway, his chest high and his shoulders still squared by custom. The civilians, dodging about, looked pale, round-shouldered and nervous. He peered upward at the tall buildings and felt a glow of pride. He stopped at a cigar store to light a cigarette, watched the men throwing dice, and envied their freedom. It must be splendid not to have to stand reveille, not to have to stand retreat, not to have to eat at a certain hour, not to have to stand or do anything unless one wished to. How happy they must be. Then he suddenly realized that he was one of them, and that though still in uniform he was just as free. He stuck a hand in his pocket in defiance of old military etiquette and in a burst of new-found freedom, thought better of it, withdrew it and walked on.

Hamilton wished he had waited for the noon train and come down with some of the other officers of his regiment. Wandering about New York alone was too big a task for one man. There were so many thoughts he wished to express, so many ideas to exchange. He wondered what McCall would think about the men and women he passed on the streets—the clerks, the girls with short skirts borrowed from the French, the women who smiled because one was in uniform, the business men who looked away for the same reason, the messenger boys, whose admiration and hero worship had outlived the armistice.

Why had he come alone at the last minute? He had planned to come at noon—had practically slipped away from camp. His mind reverted to Dorothy, although he had decided not to see her. Dorothy would be surprised to see him and probably chagrined that it was not McCall. Why had not McCall told him anything about the poem or the snapshot? Still, why should he?

Perhaps after all there was no more between them than between himself and her. McCall was on his way back to Chicago. Perhaps he had called on Dorothy while waiting for his train. Had he come alone to New York in order to be able to spend more time with Dorothy?

No, he would not see her. He would not see her. First, because of the emotional character of their farewell in Paris. In a sentimental vein he might again commit the same kind of folly. She might misconstrue his avowal of friendship for something deeper. Secondly, he would not see her because McCall had written that poem to her. He was not jealous. A ridiculous idea.

He reached the office building in which the Hamilton Company was located and rode up in the elevator to his floor. He walked to the end of the corridor and was turning the knob of the door when he noticed that the lettering was changed. He stepped back, looked about in bewilderment and finally entered. Yes, the office was differently arranged and there was a strange stenographer at the information desk. He had been here too often to mistake the number; still, if they had moved, his father would undoubtedly have told him something about it.

“Could you please tell me where the Hamilton Company is located?” he asked.

The stenographer, fluffy brown-haired and brown-eyed, looked up, smiled and showed a row of white teeth.

“I don’t know. Been here only a month, but the elevator man might know.”

She looked a moment at his uniform.

“You’re a corporal or something, aren’t you? I can tell by the things on your sleeve. I’ve got a gentleman friend who’s a corporal, too.”

“Thank you,” said Hamilton, about to turn away, when a stout gentleman came up behind the information desk.

“Did you inquire about the Hamilton Company, Captain?” he asked. “We moved in after they left, on the second of January.” The gentleman did not know where the company had moved, but referred Hamilton to the office of the building on the top floor.

On the top floor the secretary knew only that the office had been vacated December thirty-first and that no New York forwarding address had been left. All the mail, he added, was being sent to some southern address—Virginia or Carolina—no Corinth, Georgia, that was it.

Hamilton’s mind was in a whirl. Why had the New York office been discontinued? Why had his father not told him about it? He had received a letter from him only a few days ago. The New York office had been opened in 1915, when the rush of war orders had made it advisable to go directly into exporting, instead of dealing through brokers. It had not only saved the brokerage commission (a comparatively small item), but, what was more important, had brought many new orders. Perhaps with the war over, it was no longer needed.

It was nearly twelve now, and Hamilton decided to telephone Levin and eat luncheon with him. He stepped into a cigar store and called up his hotel. Levin had left fifteen minutes before, with a suitcase. They hardly expected him back before night. No, he had not left any instructions. Hamilton hung up the receiver and wondered why he had not thought to wire the night before. This reminded him that he had not yet wired home and he left for the nearest telegraph office where he sent off two messages—one to his mother and one to Margaret. Then he set out in search of a restaurant.

There was a cold look about the restaurants. They were either too large and imposing or two white and busy. He wondered whether he could find anything like the Black Cat in New York. He wished that he had come with some one else and visited several hotels in the hope of finding some one he knew in the lobby.

He was on the point of telephoning a few of his New York acquaintances when he recalled that they were all still in the service. If this were only Paris, he thought. He could sit down in any café and engage in conversation with whomever he pleased, man or woman, without violating the proprieties. It was about four months since he had eaten at the Black Cat with Dorothy. Four whole months.

Why not have luncheon with her? They could recall their experiences in Paris. They might spend the afternoon together. Hamilton remembered the address. He had said it over and over to himself at odd moments. It was only a mile or so away. No, that would be a weakness on his part. That would be an admission of something that he did not wish to face even in his mind. He would simply write her a note, saying that he had been in New York and had not found time to call.

He walked to the curb and held up his hand to a taxi, gave the driver a number and stepped in. He was still debating whether he should call on Dorothy or not when the cab stopped, the driver opened the door and he found himself actually standing outside her apartment. It would be foolish to turn back now. Perhaps she had seen him through the window.

He paid the chauffeur and climbed the stairs with throbbing heart. It was an old building—one of a row of old brownstone houses, which had long since been altered into flats, family hotels and specialty shops. It had an air of venerable, picturesque decay, an atmosphere of an older, less feverish, more homogeneous New York. In the heavy oak door, beneath a polished brass knocker, he found a button and pressed it. Presently the door opened and a gray-haired lady, with a piqued face and gold-rimmed spectacles, peered guardedly through the opening and falteringly inquired his business. He told her.

After a moment’s inspection, she let him enter and ushered him into the front room—a high-ceilinged one, with a bay window, a white-tiled mantel in one corner and a heavy flowered carpet on the floor. Miss Meadows would be back at one o’clock. It was almost that now and would he sit down there and look at the papers until she came?

Hamilton contented himself with gazing about the room. He walked over to the mantelpiece and idly inspected the ornaments—a china clock, an old-fashioned Dresden doll, and a vase containing fresh violets. He remembered that he had neglected to bring Dorothy flowers.

He turned to face the window, across which a heavily upholstered red plush settee extended. Through the lace curtain the spring sunshine fell in a golden stream. The sounds of passing persons and vehicles came to him from the street. Suddenly in the sunlight he noticed an envelope—a long official envelope. He felt of his pockets, which were bristling with official orders, as he stooped to pick it up. He had probably dropped it in removing his handkerchief. Yes, it bore his name. He was straightening up, when he heard footsteps on the stairs and a voice which he recognized as Dorothy’s. He had time to place the letter in his pocket when the door opened and Dorothy came in, her arms stretched out, a smile on her flushed face. Hamilton noticed that little strands of hair were blowing loose.

“Captain Hamilton, how are you?” she crossed over to him and gave him her hands. Hamilton’s heart beat wildly.

“This is such a surprise. Dr. Levin told me he had seen you.”

Hamilton mumbled something and was conscious of being very red.

“Yes. I’m going back to Corinth tonight and I thought I should like to see you before I leave—renew our acquaintance.”

“That was splendid of you,” she said.

In a few words they told what had happened since their last meeting and finally Hamilton suggested that they lunch together.

“I don’t suppose we can find a Black Cat here, but perhaps Claridge’s might do for a substitute,” he suggested.

She expressed her delight and excused herself to go into the next room and change to more suitable attire. When she reappeared she seemed more radiantly beautiful than ever. She had slipped on a filmy dress of blue crêpe bordered with silver.

“You look charming!” he said.

“Oh, that’s the conventional thing to say,” she retorted. “That’s what every one says.”

“No wonder every one says it!”

“And that’s conventional, too,” said Dorothy with an arch frown. She was patting her hair into position and taking one last look at herself in the mirror above the mantel. “But today let’s not be conventional. You are going to Corinth. I don’t know when we’ll meet again. So let’s not spend our time in looking at each other through masks.” They were walking down the stairs now. “No, don’t interrupt; and you were going to say, ‘But I meant it.’ It’s like a game. Your partner leads with this remark and you come back with that. Ordinarily, I can tell exactly what a man is going to reply to whatever I say.”

In the taxi, she resumed the thread of her thought.

“Why can’t men and women talk to each other just as two men do?”

“Well, don’t they?”

“No, they simply bandy expressions back and forth like a tennis ball. The man always flatters the woman. She always deprecates his words, and he affirms them.”

She turned to him suddenly.

“What do you talk about when, say, you are with Captain McCall?”

Hamilton smiled.

“Oh, the same things I talk to you about.”

“No you don’t. You don’t say he has a lovely uniform. You discuss things.”

“Has McCall been here?”

“Why no. When will he be discharged?”

“He left the day before yesterday. I was almost certain he’d visit you before leaving for Chicago. It’s queer.”

“Queer? Why should it be? He’s probably forgotten all about me, or was in too much of a hurry to stop off here.”

For some reason Hamilton felt immensely relieved. It was as though a curtain had been lifted from before his eyes. He had been mistaken in thinking that McCall had referred to Dorothy at the café. The poem had not been written to her. Hamilton’s mind ran back to the finding of the snapshot. It, too, probably had no particular significance. McCall had probably a hundred snapshots of Paris. Hamilton talked on without being fully conscious of what either he or Dorothy were saying. It was something about men and women, and Hamilton reflected that any conversation with women invariably resolved itself into the relations of the two sexes—to love, to marriage, to standards of morality.

“And that’s what I admire about Dr. Levin,” Dorothy was saying. Hamilton did not remember what had led to this remark.

“You admire—” he groped.

“Yes, I admire his sex unconsciousness,” she repeated. “He treats me, not exactly like a man, but like an intellectual equal.”

The idea amused Hamilton.

“And what do you talk about?” he asked.

“Oh, we discuss things. Just as two men would. Politics, sociology, literature, art.”

Hamilton laughed.

“Just as two men. You mean just as two Dr. Levins. When two men get together they talk—well, where I come from, they’d probably talk about hunting, or the cotton crop, or baseball or what would have happened if it hadn’t been for the war—that is, the Civil War. I called Dr. Levin when I came in, but they told me—”

“Yes, he’s gone for about two days to visit a sister. Oh, yes, and we even discuss such things as intermarriage.”

“That’s a rather dangerous subject, isn’t it?” he asked. His mind went back once more to McCall, who was a Catholic. Still this, too, was probably only part of their intellectual conversation. It was probably impersonal.

“Perhaps.” She changed the subject.

At Claridge’s they watched the people about them. They recognized some of them as actors and actresses, one of them, a Broadway star active in the formation of the new Equity League. In one corner sat a distinguished looking gentleman, with cruel blue eyes and dark hair and beard, surrounded by a group of admirers.

“That’s General Rodzinoff,” said Hamilton, “the Czarist commander whom we saw in Paris. New York is becoming cosmopolitan.”

“Oh, yes, I remember him. He’s probably arousing sympathy for the old régime,” remarked Dorothy. “The town is full of them. The emigrés are tired of Paris and are coming to this country. It’s more fertile.”

For a time they studied their menus. The colored waiter took their order obsequiously and hurried away.

“Don’t look now,” said Dorothy in a low voice, “but your Russian friend seems to be flirting.”

“Has he been practising his charms on you?” asked Hamilton.

“Oh, he’s glanced this way once or twice. But I don’t take it seriously. He’s probably spoiled by too much adulation.”

“And I suppose he’ll finish by marrying some American millionaire’s daughter. Why shouldn’t he? He’s a great war hero.”

“I don’t know about that,” Dorothy’s eyes snapped, “but I do know that he can drink like a good Russian officer. In Paris he was always more or less intoxicated, and if I don’t mistake the symptoms, he’s a little mellow now. That’s one of his favorite pastimes. The others are women and Jew baiting.”

“Jew baiting?”

“Yes. Dr. Levin has told me of some of his activities in Russia. He’s a regular pogromchik. That means an instigator of those horrible massacres in Russia. I’m surprised they tolerate him. I understand that he is spreading his propaganda in this country.”

“What propaganda? Against the Jews?”

“Yes. In Russia when anything went wrong, the ruling class always blamed the Jew. He was the scapegoat. If taxes were high or wages low, it was the Jew who was at fault. Now if General Rodzinoff can spread anti-Semitism in this country, he may succeed also in spreading the false impression that the Jews are the cause of all the trouble in Russia. He may make people forget the oppression of the old Czarist régime against which the people rebelled and from which they went to the other extreme.”

“Oh, no. The American people are too sensible for that. He might get a few fanatics, perhaps. But—” Hamilton shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Nobody of any standing.”

“Well, has Howard Brooks any standing?”

“Brooks?” Hamilton, like nine hundred and ninety-nine Americans out of a thousand, knew Brooks as the inventor and exploiter to the tune of many millions of the most widely-used automobile tire in the world—a tire which had revolutionized the automobile industry and made it possible for the first time in history for the farmer and small salaried city man to operate his own car. Because of the peculiar hissing sound they made, the tires were called “babbling brooks”—but they did the work and were cheap. Brooks had mobilized thousands of workmen, by paying them a bit more than the other manufacturers, and had then housed them and cared for them with an exacting, paternalistic benevolence. It was as though a super-efficiency man and the Kaiser had decided to go into charity on a vast scale. Wages were higher, hours were shorter, operations were safer than anywhere else; but while the men did work, they worked like machines. Their production was astounding. The lost moments in which workmen wipe their brows, blow their noses or simply rest between processes had been reduced so effectively that whereas seventeen per cent had been the smallest lost time ever achieved in any factory, Brooks had cut the percentage down to six—the minimum of safety, efficiency engineers agreed. How long a man could work at a six per cent rate—or rather a ninety-four per cent rate, of course had never been determined, as the system had been in operation only a few years and the labor turnover was rather large.

Not only were the wages of Brooks’ employees higher than the prevailing standard, but they were required to place a certain percentage of it in the bank each week. There were also numberless rules about conduct, about furnishing the home, about physical care. No Brooks employee was allowed to drink or smoke. Company investigators visited the homes to see if the food was cooked scientifically and if the baby was being fed the proper formula of prepared milk, and, so it was whispered, to smell breaths.

When the European war began Brooks had engaged the best aeronautic engineers to construct an enormous dirigible balloon. The idea was to fly over the Atlantic with it and then over the western front. Brooks and his assistants, selected from representative clubs and associations, would drop tons of peace tracts upon the combating armies. Upon reading these, the armies would cease fighting. “Out of the trenches by apple blossom time,” was his motto. Incidentally the balloon would have a powerful advertising value, as the dirigible was to be known as the Brooks Peace Ship. It wouldn’t hurt to get the good-will of foreign motor users for after-the-war trade.

When a Chicago newspaper had poked fun at the plan and Brooks had sued the paper for libel, Brooks had been placed on the witness stand and exhibited a shocking ignorance of the most elementary facts of American history. When asked who Benjamin Franklin was, for instance, he had replied that he was the inventor of an air-cooled automobile motor and Benedict Arnold, an English author.

At the last minute the committee in charge of the airship had fallen out as to where they should fly first, over the French or over the Germans, without offending either of the belligerents. It ended in a tremendous row, with every one calling every one else a pro-German or a pro-Frenchman and going home.

At the vaudeville shows, in the smokers of trains, in the joke columns Brooks’ name appeared frequently. It was a by-word and a signal for laughter. For one person to say to another:

“Say, I see you’ve got a new set of rubber doughnuts on your car,” was a cue for uproarious laughter—rubber doughnuts of course meaning “babbling brooks.”

For all these reasons the mention of Brooks’ name caused Hamilton to smile involuntarily. He waved his hand in a deprecating gesture.

“Of course that strikes you as funny,” said Dorothy, “but Brooks has standing—any man with so much money has. Of course he has no culture, in fact is an ignoramus, but he has money and can hire brains. Men will do anything for money.”

Hamilton laughed.

“Hope I’ve heard my last Brooks joke,” he said. “But where did you get all this information?”

“Some of it from Dr. Levin. Some of it—”

“Oh, I see,” he interrupted. “Dr. Levin. Probably a little sensitive. I’ve noticed most Jews are. Even in my company. You say something about English or Irish or Italian and nobody minds. You even say ‘wop’ and an Italian grins good naturedly. But the minute you say something, anything, good or bad, about the Jew, they’re all ears and eyes—all on edge. I think Dr. Levin’s probably supersensitive.”

Hamilton refused to take the matter seriously. At the same time he wondered why she brought Dr. Levin’s name so often into the conversation. She had learned this from Dr. Levin, and that. She quoted him and sometimes even held him up as an example.

They finished their meal and left the Claridge, the Russian general still charming his circle of admirers with his conversation, his cruel blue eyes still circling the room for fresh objects of feminine beauty.

XVII

“Now for another Luxembourg Garden,” said Hamilton as they left the Claridge.

“It’s not exactly the same thing, but perhaps Central Park might do,” suggested Dorothy. “I go there once in a while, when I wish to escape from—from myself. We might go there for a while. As long as you get me back by five.”

They boarded a Fifth Avenue bus and dismounted at Fifty-ninth Street. Spring had scarce come and only the first buds and the boldest blades of grass appeared, but it was warm in the sunshine. Overhead innumerable birds proclaimed their faith in the coming of another summer. And the women on horseback along the bridle-paths or afoot wore bright, spring clothes. Hamilton’s thoughts flew back to Georgia. There the trees must be thick with foliage, green leaves and sweet-scented magnolia blossoms, and roses must be in bloom.

How long they walked together Hamilton did not know. Nor did he know of what they spoke. In fact he said little, leaving the burden of their conversation to Dorothy. His mind was flying back and forth between the present and the future. He was sensing the passing moments, perhaps his last with the woman who walked at his side, with such eagerness that he somehow missed their details. It was as though he were saying: “This moment, this position of her head, this touch of the sunlight upon her face, all these are precious and will not return.” And in the meantime the moment had melted into another and he had lost the thread of their common talk.

Dorothy’s mind was everywhere—the war, its effect on art, on literature, on morals, on conceptions of democracy. The thread of their conversation was being broken and picked up.

They had seated themselves on a bench when Hamilton suddenly became aware of the lateness of the hour. In a few minutes they would be riding home and there were so many things to tell her. It seemed to him that she, too, was waiting for something, something that had sprung up between them and to which he must give voice.

“You know,” he said at length, “I’m engaged.”

It was not what he had wished to say, and the knowledge that he had said it for a single moment appalled him. He was glad in a way and proud that he had told her. In another way he feared that he had been presumptuous. Was that a tremor of her lip, or simply the play of light and shadow? Or was it his imagination? No, her eyes were still sparkling, happy. He was right. They were only friends. They could be nothing else. And, though their friendship was fated for nothing deeper; still it was right that he had told her. He had done the right thing. It was not a conflicting love, but the faint possibility of disloyalty even in thought to the woman whom he had already chosen, that he had shut out.

“No, I didn’t know, exactly,” she smiled. “For a time I thought—I suppose it is the faithful little Southern girl you left behind you, the one whose letters I used to bring you.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, yes, once when you were delirious you even paid me the compliment of saying that I looked like her.”

For a fleeting instant Hamilton had an impression that Dorothy was laughing at him—trying to laugh or trying not to laugh, he could not tell which.

“I did say that—and I do. It was not delirium.”

She rose and Hamilton knew that his afternoon had come to an end.

“No, don’t take me home. Just see me to the bus line. I’d rather leave you that way,” she was smiling.

“This afternoon,” he said, “I shall always remember. It’s been—” from somewhere a phrase popped into his head—“‘a sheaf of golden moments.’”

Dorothy darted a quick look of surprise.

“‘With here and there,’” she continued, “‘a scarlet memory.’”

Hamilton suddenly remembered where he had heard that phrase. The memory gave him a queer shock. It seemed as though he had suddenly intruded upon something. And yet, she had said that McCall had not called on her before returning home.

“Where did you hear that?” she asked. “I picked it up somewhere in Paris, in the hospital.”

“I don’t remember,” he replied.

They had reached the street and a bus was approaching. Dorothy held out her hand.

“We shall always be friends, I hope.” Were her eyes a bit wistful?

“Yes, friends.”

She was climbing into the bus, her face flushed, little ends of brown hair blowing free from under her turban. Hamilton remembered their last leave-taking in the Luxembourg gardens. Through the window he caught a glimpse of her walking forward to a seat, smiling as he had seen her smiling in the hospital, when caring for the wounded.

He wondered if there were tears on her lashes.

XVIII

When Hamilton looked out of the window of his Pullman the next morning he noticed that the earth was red. He had left the land of dark earth, the cities of gray streets and walks. He had left the cold North and was back home in the South. The hills, rolling in every direction to the slowly rotating horizon, were covered with greenery, and a warmer, more golden sunshine brightened it. It seemed, too, that the sky was bluer. And, peeping out from between the trees and shrubs and running along the roads and ditches—red earth.

At noon he saw for the first time in two years a little patch covered with scrubby green plants, just bursting into fluffy white blossoms. In one corner of the field a shack, weather-beaten, gray, unpainted, with a sagging door and broken windows. A Negro mammy in the doorway, a half-dozen pickaninnies playing at her feet, all in rags. Out in the field a white-haired Negro, bent under the load of a crate piled high with cotton, tottering toward the shack. The heads and backs of other Negroes bending over their cotton.

It was only a patch. It was too far north for the heavier yields of cotton. Yet, it was cotton!

It kept growing warmer. Hamilton’s coat became too heavy. He wished that he had taken his cotton uniform with him. He noticed how the vegetation kept growing thicker as they proceeded southward. Now the forests through which they passed were so thick that one could not see into them. Vines and creepers, heavy moss, thick shrubs, high grass, all knit the forest into a single being. The grass grew up to the tracks and even between them.

The towns too were different—smaller, slower, dingier. It was a different world, a more picturesque world, and a more primitive one. He noticed, with a new insight into such things, how much of the towns was wooden—stores, factories, public buildings, and, of course, homes. Even the sidewalks. Also there were more wagons drawn by horse or mule. The streets looked crooked and unpaved. The structures unpainted. Men stood around or moved slowly—at the stations, on the streets. And everywhere there were Negroes. Negroes moving trucks at the depots. Negroes lazily driving their teams along the roads. Negroes on the streets. Negroes on the farms and plantations. Negroes even behind the counters of stores. He had never before realized how black the South was, how many less white men than in the North. Previously most of his life away from home had been spent at school, a world where black men seldom intruded. But now they seemed like a tide of color, like a forest pressing down upon the little towns and villages, slowly choking them with their prolific vegetation.

He thought of Williams and of the Paris salons that had been thrown open to him and to other colored soldiers who had fought under the same flag as the white men. He watched the ragged black patiently toiling under the Southern sun. He wondered whether they would be content to remain thus. An idea struck him. He examined the individual figures more closely. Yes! He had noticed something familiar about the shirts that some of the laborers wore. They were the olive drab of the army. And there was a husky in olive drab breeches and army shoes.

It was five o’clock. Hamilton looked through his time table again. He had wired his father to meet him at a suburb one station north of Corinth. It was about the same distance from home as the main station, but he wished to avoid anything approaching a public reception. He had entered the service as a student officer. He was coming back a captain. Some of the home guards might not understand how automatic promotion was. They might greet him with a band or something equally nonsensical. He wished to come home quietly. He wished to rest. He wished—he did not know—yes, Margaret. He wished to see her again. He wished to have the wedding as soon as possible and settle down to his new life.

The train was screeching to a halt and through the window he saw them waiting for him—his father, a little paler than when he had seen him in New York, it seemed; his mother, clutching his arm, and trying not to cry—it was the same way she looked when she had bade him good-bye, only she, too, seemed a little older, and then Margaret, flushed and radiant, in a bright yellow silk sweater.

The next minute he was down the steps and into his mother’s arms. Yes, she was older, but not very much, and still beautiful—with her white hair and girlish complexion, her gentle blue eyes, her refined features. Hamilton remembered the time that a schoolmate had mistaken his mother and his only sister, Virginia Ruth, for sisters. Virginia Ruth was married to a New Orleans banker and had children of her own now. But no one would any longer mistake the two for sisters. One cheated time for a while, for a few years; but, in the end, time won.

Hamilton could think of nothing to say, but “Mother, how are you?”

Of the hundred questions that crowded in her brain, all that she could ask was: “Robert, isn’t your uniform too warm?” The gulf between them was suddenly bridged and they laughed.

Superintended by Mr. Hamilton, George, the middle-aged Negro chauffeur, was proudly piling the suitcases into the family automobile. He was grinning from ear to ear and remarked repeatedly that “the gen’ral sure do look well” and something about “bein’ mighty scrumptious.” Father and son shook hands briefly, but Margaret held out her arms and drew down Hamilton’s head. It was the first time that he had kissed her in the presence of anybody else, the first time he had kissed any one, outside the family, before his mother and he felt awkward and self-conscious. As he bent down, he noticed the sparkle of emeralds and diamonds in her engagement ring and felt ashamed that he had eyes for anything but Margaret herself. He noted how calmly she could kiss him—not exactly calmly, but self-possessedly and without embarrassment.

With his first glance, too, he saw how beautiful she really was and how strikingly similar her beauty was, in a way, to that of Dorothy. Only it had a quality of naiveté. She looked, if not actually younger in years, younger in spirit. Hers was the naive sophistication of the rising generation—a generation wise in its own conventionalities, the conventionalities of breaking older conventionalities.

It was surprising how her set, among the sons and daughters of the best families in Georgia, could assimilate so readily the spirit of the new freedom, without, at the same time, absorbing its intellectual aspects. Margaret, for instance, knew nothing about political or economic movements save as they came filtered to her through the mind of her parents. The freedom, therefore, was exhibited mainly in the social sphere—in attending dances and parties unchaperoned, in driving her own motor car, in discussing love and sex theories—generally gleaned from motion pictures or printed stories—in dressing more freely than her mother had done, in staying away with increasing frequency from church, in smoking cigarettes surreptitiously and even in drinking away from home—a little.

She had no real discrimination in her choice of either art, literature or cigarettes. She had no favorite schools or intellectual movements. And no theories. She simply liked a picture or a book, or didn’t like it—her emancipation from the old conventionalities expressing itself simply in a frankness in expressing her opinion. Whereas her mother would have admired a painting because she thought that was the thing to do, with Margaret the thing to do was to say you didn’t like it if you didn’t. But her taste for fiction—the only kind of literature she read—was omnivorous. In music, too, her tastes were of contradictory breadth, preferring Beethoven one night and jazz the next. She played the piano. Classical music when there were older visitors, old ballads when alone with her mother, jazz music when in her own set. When there was no one else with her she played the three categories in the order of jazz first, then ballads, and lastly classical music.

Margaret was a joy on a horse and a mermaid in the water and altogether a creditable product of the finishing school which her mother had selected for her. The best testimony to this being the fact that she could have married a half dozen of the most eligible young Corinthians, since her graduation, two years ago in June.

The Hamiltons climbed into the touring car, the returned hero seating himself between his mother and his fiancée, while the father took one of the collapsible seats. The home-coming had not been unseen by a crowd of tatterdemalion colored children, who viewed Captain Hamilton with awe until he disappeared down the street.

Hamilton was conscious of many things and of many emotions: warm sunshine bathing the town and fragrant blooming magnolia trees overarching the road; glimpses of familiar houses; the street down which he had attempted to elope with Margaret; the public school-house where he had been set upon and in which he had triumphed in his last fight of childhood; a magnificent old church which he used to admire profoundly as a boy; homes of old friends. He was conscious of the love and pride of the three with whom he rode and the feeling of possession of Margaret, whose eyes were on him, as much as his mother’s.

“Your wound is quite all right?” asked Mr. Hamilton sitting sidewise in his seat.

“It’s fine,” Hamilton assured him. “Couldn’t be better. I think I could even take the sorrel over the fence.”

“Robert, you wouldn’t do that?” said his mother reprovingly, while his father and Margaret laughed. “Taking the sorrel over the fence” had become a family joke, an expression for extreme recklessness, because shortly before leaving for New York, Robert, on a dare, had actually jumped the stone fence on the sorrel, Annabell Lee. As his father had said at the time, Robert had risked the knees of a very valuable horse and the neck of a very heedless rider.

“No, there’s not much chance after the bawling out I got last time.” Mr. Hamilton smiled.

“But Annabell is waiting for you,” he said, “all groomed up sleek and shiny by George himself, here.”

The chauffeur’s white-teethed grin was reflected in the windshield as he nodded his head. “Tha’s right, sir, that’s right. Annabell Lee, there ain’t no horses slicker than her. She like mahogany.”

“Well, I won’t take any fences. But how are you, mother? It’s wonderful to be back.”

“Oh, I’ll take you out riding,” suggested Margaret eagerly. “I know just a ripping place to go, and I’ll race you.”

“Not for a while, Margaret, I’m too lazy for much of anything right now. If I go I’ll take old Major. How is Major?”

“He’s not with us any more, Robert.”

“Did he die?”

Robert looked from his father to his mother. Her eyes faltered.

“No, we sold him,” said Mr. Hamilton.

“Getting old, I suppose.”

“Oh, have I told you? We’ve got another captain in our set,” asked Margaret suddenly. “Who do you think? Howard Pinkney. He got his commission just about the time I got that awful letter telling me you were wounded. I’ll never forget how I felt.”

“Pinkney?”

“Oh, this town is full of ’em,” the elder Hamilton laughed, with the faintest suggestion of irony in his voice. “Captains and majors.”

“Oh, no, he’s a real captain. He showed me his commission. He’s captain of our home guards, and he says it’s the same rank as captain in the infantry or artillery. Is it?”

“Well, that’s a rather embarrassing question. But perhaps we could say that it’s not exactly the same thing, although it is very nearly.”

“Oh, of course, you did the real fighting. It was wonderful how you risked your life and I’m proud of you, oh, ever so proud. I’ve had a service flag in the window ever since you left, with only one star—for you. Howard wanted me to have two stars, but, of course, he stayed at home. He’s one of the organizers now of the Trick Track Tribe. Or is that a secret, Mr. Hamilton? He’ll be asking Robert to join anyway.”

“It’s probably a pretty open secret.”

“Trick Track Tribe? What an odd name. Trick Track. It sounds like the cocking of an old-fashioned musket. Trick Track.”

“That’s just what it’s supposed to be. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s to revive the old Southern chivalry and maintain the superiority of the white race and promote Americanism.”

“That sounds pretty ambitious,” laughed Robert. “I really didn’t know the white race was in danger. But if the Trick Tracks can do all that, I’m for them.”

Now the car was rounding a corner and the next minute the Hamilton residence appeared at the end of a row of tall trees. There were the familiar pillars, rising from the floor of the porch to the cornice; the little grilled window just over the door, looking out from the landing on the stairs and through which Hamilton had often peered as a boy; the porch swing; the green shutters, breaking up the mass of white; the lattice under the porch, behind which Hamilton had often prowled, playing it was a bandit’s cave. The grass was as green and the vines clambered as thickly about the sides of the home as his memory had pictured.

“Your room, dear, is just the way you left it,” remarked Mrs. Hamilton as the car drove up the path with a scream of the siren.

They dismounted, George springing down in time to open the door and then bringing up the rear with the suitcases. Robert had expected to see the colored servants at the door—Mammy Chloe, who baked memorial corn fritters and candied yams, and her two daughters, Clorabelle and Susy May (sometimes facetiously called Chlorine by Robert), the housemaids, and Sam, a white-haired black of uncertain age who looked after the horses, trimmed the grass and otherwise assisted George. But only Mammy Chloe appeared, in her best apron, a clean, white kerchief around her head, rocking her fat sides in happiness.

“Lor’ bless us if it ain’t Genril Robert hisself.”

“Only captain so far, Mammy Chloe,” Robert corrected her, as he took her hands in his and looked down at her. “Have you got any of those corn fritters ready for me? I’m sure hungry.” This tribute to her culinary skill pleased her prodigiously.

“Corn fritters ain’t nothing to what I done fix for you all. An’ I won’t tell you what they is. You jes’ wait till come dinner. My lan’ sakes, what all them Huns do to you? You wait! You old Mammy Chloe get you fat again, so Miss Margaret won’t know you.”

After George had deposited the suitcases in his room and Mrs. Hamilton had kissed Robert and closed the door gently behind her, Robert sank down in his chair. He was tired and warm. He had almost forgotten about his wound, yet the simple matter of traveling for thirty-six hours was telling on him. He slowly unbuttoned his coat, unfastened his puttees and unlaced his shoes. It would be a good half-hour before dinner.

He removed a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and began looking about the room. It was exactly as he had left it. The same high-ceilinged room, with its friendly ivory woodwork; the same inviting bay windows, half hidden by vines, with the circular window seats; the same rosewood furniture. In the center of one wall was the fireplace and on either side the bookcases lined with the old textbooks and his favorite volumes. Home again.

Robert arose, undressed and slipped into his bathrobe. He walked about the room to verify the presence of certain objects. Yes, even his class pipe was there. He removed his wrist watch and laid it on the dressing table. There would just be time enough for a shower.

His spirits rose under the stinging spray and he began humming’ an old army tune:

“I wanna go home,
Gee, but I wanna go home.
The bullets they whistle,
The cannons they roar;

I don’t wanna go back to the trenches no more.

I wanna sail ’cross the sea

Where the Allemand can’t get at me.

Oh, my, I’m too young to die.

Gee, but I wanna go home!”

As he rubbed himself with a bath towel he thought: “Mammy Chloe is right at that. I am pretty thin.” He flexed his muscles and posed before the mirror. Not so much thinner than when he had left home. He had gained almost fifteen pounds in the army and lost it all and a little more in the hospital. The scar was barely visible. He remembered the wound that his grandfather had received in the Civil War and wondered whether inquisitive children would ever ask him to show his scar. He inspected his face in the mirror. Not such a bad job for shaving on the train. He threw on his bathrobe and returned to his room. In the closet, carefully protected by a wardrobe bag hung his dinner clothes, perfectly pressed. After he had dressed he again stood before the mirror. Civilian clothes felt loose. They felt as though he had forgotten to put something on. They were careless, unrestrained, individualistic garments.

“Gee, but I wanna go home,” he sang.

When Captain Hamilton, in conventional dinner clothes, reached the foot of the stairs it was to shock his mother and Margaret.

“Wherever did you get those?” asked Margaret.

“Why, dear,” pleaded Mrs. Hamilton, “I thought you would surely wear your uniform. A few friends are coming over and I’m sure they would like to see you in uniform.”

Robert grinned.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just thought it would be rather nice to slip into these for a change. You know I’ve worn olive-drab for two years now.”

“But they will want to see you in uniform,” urged his mother.

“And Howard is going to be here and I do want him to see you in uniform. He’s going to wear his,” added Margaret.

“Which is all the more reason why I shouldn’t. Anyway my uniform’s too hot, and my gabardine is in the trunk.”

But Mrs. Hamilton triumphantly pointed to the fact that George had just returned from another trip to the depot with Robert’s locker trunks and would carry them up in another minute, and Captain Hamilton was forced to turn back and resume the habiliments of war. But he did it happily. The last time, he thought.

XIX

Howard Pinkney did come, as Margaret had predicted, and, as she had likewise predicted, he wore his captain’s uniform. He made some sort of explanation. He was either coming from an affair or going to one which all the officers of the home guards were to attend or had attended, and there was no time left for changing into “civies.” He was very apologetic about it and very effulgent in his praise of the returning captain.

Hamilton’s dislike for Pinkney was reborn. He had disliked him in childhood because Howard had rosy cheeks—an unforgivable offense in a boy. He had punched his nose for that reason many, many years ago, although the announced reason was that Pinkney “was too darned smart.” And having harmed him for no legitimate reason, he naturally disliked him still more. Pinkney, however, in spite of Robert’s opinion, had turned out disappointingly successful. He had stepped out of college into a large lumber firm, showed a precocious grasp of business principles and within two years had been made vice-president. During the war he had made his spectacular coup of cornering most of the available Southern walnut used in fashioning rifle stocks.

For a young man he had a peculiarly set—Hamilton called it “ossified”—mind. He accepted traditional ideas as firmly as do men of twice his years and without youth’s questioning of them. In business he had a whole set of principles that Hamilton never knew existed. He had ideas about the position of the South in industry and about the South’s contribution to world commerce. Things that no healthy young man would think twice about. Where Hamilton would be interested in discussing a football game or a play, Pinkney would discuss the extension of the federal reserve system.

To Robert, business was a mere incident in life, a necessary evil whereby one provided one’s self with the means of enriching and enjoying it. To Pinkney, business was one of life’s essentials. He took it quite as seriously as tennis or riding. A surprising fellow.

Tennis and riding he did well—efficiently—that was the word. Just as he did everything else. It was part of his physical life. He had departments—physical, mental, moral, social, and all separated from each other like boxes in a vault. In order to succeed one must give so much time and effort to each of these divisions. One must play tennis or take some other suitable form of exercise every day so as to keep in trim for the more serious duties of life. When Pinkney went for a walk, he didn’t say: “I’m going out to commune with nature,” which is sentimental, but understandable, or “I’m going along a picturesque road,” or simply “I’m going for a walk,” but “I’m going to get an hour’s exercise.”

He had an annoying way of keeping up with the times in everything. He even subscribed to the New York Times so that he might profit by the book reviews and bought the volumes there recommended.

He attended church and the most important social functions with regularity and was looked up to everywhere. He was pointed out as an example of the Southern young man in business. On public committees he frequently represented the young business man. Nothing could keep him from becoming in time president of his firm, a bank director, president of the Chamber of Commerce and a college trustee.

It was only characteristic that Howard Pinkney should still aspire to Margaret’s hand long after she had chosen Robert, and it was also characteristic of him that he should neither show nor feel the slightest animosity towards his successful rival. He treated him with all the charity that he used toward a formidable business competitor.

Pinkney was undeniably handsome in his concentrated, alert way. He was nearly as tall as Robert, slighter-framed but heavier, with straight, light brown hair combed back from a sloping forehead. His features were more regular, less rugged than Robert’s and his gray eyes were intelligent and intense. Hamilton noticed all this as Pinkney first entered the room and wondered why Margaret had so often rejected him in favor of himself. It was Howard’s only failure.

Howard, as an officer of the home guard, somehow supererogated to himself the function of reintroducing Hamilton to his townsfolk.

“Judge, here is Captain Hamilton. Isn’t he looking splendid after his harassing experiences in France? We must have him recount them to us some evening at the club. Lieutenant Brownlow—Mr. Brownlow is one of the lieutenants in the guards. He was exempt because of fallen arches—Lieutenant Brownlow has been longing to see you and I have taken the liberty of inviting him. Of course he knows all about your splendid exploits. Mr. Jarvis, our hero has come back again. Have you a card with you? We must bring him into the Trick Track Tribe. Yes, here it is. Thank you. Give it to me when you have filled it out.”

Hamilton slipped the card into his pocket without reading it. He was becoming tired of meeting so many people. He had always looked forward to his home coming as to an opportunity for unlimited rest. And here he was in the midst of a buzz of many conversations, shaking hands, answering a hundred questions, standing up, moving around to different groups, always smiling. Of course, he understood, this was his first night at home. One had to sacrifice one’s self to the duties of society. But he heartily wished that it was over. He wished, above all, that the home guard would suddenly mobilize for some reason and that Pinkney would be called out.

In Paris he had enjoyed the salons, the stimulating exchange of ideas; but in his own home he wished to be alone with his parents, and perhaps with Margaret. His parents, he perceived, were probably wishing the same thing. They kept throwing little smiles at him and to each other and Mrs. Hamilton kept coming over to squeeze his hand. How beautiful his mother really must have been when she was, say, Margaret’s age. He loved her soft gray hair. And how distinguished his father looked, with his immaculate moustache and goatee.

Robert moved to a little group of men who were discussing some subject animatedly and sat down.

“There’s only one solution for this problem,” the fat, bald-headed little man, who had been introduced to him as Mr. Jarvis, was saying, “and that’s Americanization.”

“Americanization?” It was Pinkney’s father speaking, a heavy moustached man, with hawk-like features—Howard “took after” his mother. “Americanization? What they need is a good dose of tar and feathers. Yes, sir, good old tar and feathers. What do you think about it, Captain Hamilton?” He leaned forward in his chair.

“What is that?” asked Robert.

“Those damned foreigners,” the older Pinkney drawled. “The niggers are bad enough. But now these damned foreigners are getting too strong here.”

Mr. Pinkney was the sort of man who never referred to foreigners, save as “damned foreigners,” nor to women without adding “God bless ’em.”

“Do you know what some of those Jews are doing? Yes, sir, let me tell you! They’re bringing business up Telfair Avenue. When my father built there, yes, sir, it was the finest district in Corinth. He thought he’d leave it for his children and his children’s children. Never thought the town would grow to it. Now, sir, just take a drive past the place. I had to sell it three years ago. What are they doing? Putting up apartments, yes, sir, apartments.”

He looked fiercely at Hamilton as if to see whether Robert could possibly have any sympathy with a foreigner who put up apartment buildings.

“Five years ago that Jew real estate man, Abrams, came to me. Said it was inevitable that business must expand and that it would march up Telfair Avenue. Said he was negotiating for some leases there and advised me to convert my property into something that would pay. Pay, sir, pay! I told him that my father hadn’t built his house to pay, but to live in. Ha, Ha!”

Jarvis and Pinkney and the other gentlemen laughed.

“That’s a good one, all right,” said Jarvis.

“Yes, sir, live in. Well, he said that as the lower part of Telfair Avenue became a business section, the value of the upper part would fall because it would lose its exclusiveness. And he advised me to tear down the home or at least remodel it into an apartment building, and move out in Fairview. Said he was moving there himself.”

Pinkney looked about sharply and paused a moment to accentuate the effect of the denouement of the incident.

“What did I tell him? I said, ‘So you’re moving out to Fairview? Well, that’s every reason in the world why I shouldn’t! Just like that, sir. Shut him up, right off, like that.’”

“That’s the way to fix ’em!” said Jarvis, nodding his head.

“But wasn’t the real estate man right after all?” Hamilton asked timidly after the laughter had subsided. “Wasn’t it good advice?”

“Good advice? Why, if it weren’t for Abrams and his kind Telfair Avenue would still be an exclusive residence district. Yes, sir. Everybody else sold and moved out, but I stuck to my property until they built up all around it. When they tried to get my place I put up a stiff price. I didn’t want ’em to come there in the first place with their apartment houses and, if they wanted it bad enough I thought they could pay for it. But the shrewd rascals wouldn’t buy. They went ahead with their plans. Well, sir, when I moved I offered the land at their price, but they wouldn’t take it. No, sir, wouldn’t take it. We had some words, and I told Abrams what I thought of him and the Jerusalem he was bringing to Corinth.”

The older Pinkney went into a detailed and often vituperative account of his real estate dealings, the upshot of which was that the “damned Jew” wouldn’t buy, the Pinkney property was sold piecemeal to other dealers for a song, sold in turn to some other “damned Jew” and a large apartment building erected.

Someone else capped the story with an account of how a Jewish merchant was enlarging his department store, the few original merchants whose fathers or grandfathers had founded their businesses having been slowly forced out of business by competition.

“You’ve been away so long, young sir,” said Mr. Pinkney, “that you don’t realise what’s been happening here. But we’ve got something to remedy that. Yes, sir, remedy it. It’s the good old remedy of tar applied externally with a lot of feathers. It cured the carpetbaggers after the War and it’ll cure the niggers and foreigners now. Maybe Howard has told you something about it. My son has been up against un-Americanism here while you were fighting the enemy over in France. And he’s one of the leaders in reviving the Trick Track Tribe.”

Mr. Forsythe, Margaret’s father, a gray, small man of uncertain gestures and opinions, darted him a swift look. He had greeted Hamilton previously with a subdued warmth, which had puzzled his prospective son-in-law.

“Is it?” he was going to say ‘safe,’ thought better of it, “that is, does he know?”

“Oh, yes, he’ll be one of us. We’re all Trick Tracks here, aren’t we? Jarvis has given Robert an application card. Ordinarily we wouldn’t use the name, but Robert’s all right. Yes, sir. We all know where he stands.”

Reassured, Mr. Forsythe spoke about Mill Town, a suburb which had sprung up during the war for the housing of workers in Corinth factories.

“You don’t appreciate this, young man,” he began. “When our supply of labor ran low meeting war orders, we tried an experiment, brought a few foreign laborers from Baltimore through an agency. Now we’re sorry we did it. We paid them high wages and they settled down with their families. There’s quite a colony of them now. They’re a vicious lot. They wouldn’t stand for a cut of wages after the armistice, because, they said, prices hadn’t come down yet. And they actually had the audacity to insist on our continuing to recognise the union.”

“It’s the same all over. All over. Yes, sir,” Mr. Pinkney cut in. “But we’ll crush the unions. They’ve no place in a free government. They’re un-American.”

“Un-American” was one of the most frequent words in Mr. Pinkney’s vocabulary and it took the place of argument. It was enough to call a thing un-American to condemn it immediately. Thus he never said that labor unions are a bad thing because they interfere with freedom of contract, or because they tend to form a monopoly of labor under the control of a few men, or because they engender class consciousness. He never raised arguments, even bad arguments, against them! They were simply un-American.

Socialism was not even discussable, because it “bore the stamp ‘Made in Germany,’” and was moreover the theory of a Jew. It was so un-American that its mere mention caused him to turn purple with rage. And having decided that Socialism was un-American, there was a whole category of other institutions that were tabooed as Socialistic. He had viewed with alarm the control by the government of the railroads during the war, “because it was Socialistic.” He never argued that it expedited or delayed the transportation of men and materials to the sea-board. He never argued that it raised or lowered freight rates. He never argued that it increased or lowered the morale of the workers. He never argued that it aided or hindered the financial condition of the roads. Not he. No, sir. With a single word he knocked down the fallacy of all government ownership. It was socialistic.

Foreign language papers were per se un-American and the use of a foreign language an open insult. No matter whether the offender had been imported into this country only a few years before, had been working too hard in the steel or textile mills to learn English and was gaining his conceptions of Americanism through the foreign papers and in a foreign tongue, or whether he had lived in this country thirty years. It was un-American.

Un-American, Hamilton perceived, as Mr. Pinkney rattled on, were the meetings of labor unions and the speeches made there. Mr. Pinkney had not attended them, the idea, sir, and he had no intention of doing so, but he knew that no good could come of them. Drinking in a saloon as the foreigners did and drinking beer with their meals were un-American, although partaking of beverages in one’s club or drawing room was proper. The graduated income tax with its damnable surtaxes was confiscatory, Socialistic and un-American. The tariff, except on cotton, certain kinds of lumber and a few articles in which he was interested, was un-American. Even the Republican party was a party of nigger-lovers and foreigners, an un-American institution, foisted on the nation by the North and to which no gentleman of standing belonged.

Mr. Pinkney’s tirade amused Hamilton. It was what he had heard in his father’s drawing room and at his club before the war, only stronger than ever. The war had liberalized his own ideas, but evidently it had increased the conservatism of those who had remained at home. He had accepted the Germans for the time being as a foe, but as a worthy foe and one to be treated according to ideas of chivalry traditional with white civilization. Here they held an exaggerated hatred for things not only German, but even foreign. Hamilton recalled with a smile Levin’s description of the hundred per centers who remained at home and refused to eat German fried potatoes.

In Paris, too, he had heard Socialism discussed on every hand. He was not a Socialist. The persons who discussed it were divided in their opinions. Some were bitter opponents. Others were ardent supporters. Still others believed in a modified Socialistic program. It was the same way with other ideas—with Bolshevism, with the League of Nations, with post-impressionism, with vers libre. Men and women discussed these subjects animatedly on both, sides; but he had never heard anyone condemn an institution or an idea simply because it was un-French or condemn the discussion of it.

Of course, Paris had its Bourbons, but even they did not seem quite so intolerant.

In Paris, in fact, he had witnessed an excess of liberality—in morals, in art, in literature, as well as in political philosophy. It had even made Hamilton uncomfortable. He felt that in contrast Mr. Pinkney’s philosophy was sound. It had, at least, the soundness of conservatism—the unwillingness to change what time has proved to be good, for the new and untried. There was no danger that a city of Pinkneys would ever tolerate any of the shocking spectacles that he had seen in the Paris concert halls. There was no danger that a city of Pinkneys would ever hold ideas of free love. It was inconceivable that any Pinkney would ever aid in razing a bastile or setting up a commune or a system of soviets. It was inconceivable even that a state of Pinkneys would attempt to operate public cotton mills, as some Socialistic western state was trying to operate grain elevators. Pinkney was certainly safe and sane—so insanely sane. Come what might he would forget nothing of his principles of Americanism. And would never learn anything.

Hamilton mildly expressed the view that practically every inhabitant of the United States was as American as even Mr. Pinkney would have him. The exceptions were so few that one could disregard them. But the holding of a different opinion on political, economic or even social questions did not at all interfere with their Americanism. If the opinion was wrong, full discussion of it, even a little experimentation of certain theories, would prove them wrong.

“A lie must fall of its own weight,” said Hamilton.

“But we’ll help push it over,” said the younger Pinkney coming up at this point, “won’t we dad? And we need men like you, Captain Hamilton, to help us. There are abuses that must be corrected. The Negro must be kept in his place. The supremacy of the white man must be maintained. The Constitution of the United States must be upheld. Unwarranted strikes must be prevented. Law and order must prevail.”

It was rather pompous nonsense, Hamilton thought. Certainly, law and order should prevail and unwarranted strikes be prevented and the Constitution upheld. As for the Negro, of course he must remain in his place. But what was his place? Two years ago he would have said that the Negro’s place was on the plantation and in the less skilled classes of labor exclusively. In Paris he had been ready to defend that theory fiercely. Now he was not so sure. He remembered the reception where Williams had been received on even terms with the white guests and he wondered what would happen should Williams suddenly walk into the room. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Margaret approaching with refreshments of some kind.

Neither Chlorabelle nor Chlorine had appeared that evening. Ordinarily they would have distributed the trays. Instead, Mrs. Hamilton, assisted by Margaret, was performing that service. Mammy Chloe and George were the only servants visible and they, from time to time, appeared with plates of sandwiches or cakes or ices or to renew the punch bowl.

Hamilton listened impatiently to Pinkney.

“When I was in Paris,” he began, “I saw something that I suppose would have shocked you all. It was at a reception, one of a number that I attended in the Champs Elysées. The hostess, the Countess Montfort....”

Hamilton went on to describe the reception.

“And who do you think was the center of attraction? Not any Frenchman, nor any of the foreign generals or ambassadors—but a Negro officer!”

Mr. Jarvis puffed out his cheeks.

“Horrible! Horrible!”

Mr. Forsythe shook his head vaguely. The elder Pinkney looked as though he had barely escaped swallowing his moustache. His son clenched his fists and puffed out his chest importantly.

“Really not,” exclaimed Margaret. “I hope you didn’t stay there.”

“No,” he replied, “I didn’t. I flew into a rage, said something that I’m afraid might have been misconstrued as rude and left.”

The Pinkneys uttered their approval and the others added their smaller voices.

“Splendid! That was exactly what I should have done!” declared Margaret, her brown eyes blazing. She looked like a reincarnation of Dixie aroused—lithe, beautiful, impassioned.

“But,” Hamilton gulped. He was aware that he was about to spoil the tableau. Of course he realised that he might explain that Williams had saved his life, which would make his feelings excusable. But why should he do that? The fact that a colored man had or had not rescued him really ought not to affect their attitude. He would not tell them. “But,” said Hamilton, “the queer thing about it was that later I felt ashamed of myself. Not right away, but a few days later. I felt ashamed that I, as an American, as an officer in an army which had gone over there with the avowed purpose of making the world safe for democracy, had held that attitude to another American, to a brother officer in the same army.” Hamilton watched Margaret’s face turn pale and then red and her eyes fall in embarrassment, but he went on. “I felt ashamed that of all the people there, representatives of every race and nation, that an American should have been the only one to express so un-American an attitude.”

He warmed to his subject as he noticed his hearers exchange uneasy glances. His mother, too, had come up to look for him, and he noticed her in a little fringe of guests who had been attracted by the discussion. She was listening.

“It isn’t as though I don’t think my race the finest on earth,” he went on. “But it seems that in some things we haven’t always been just—haven’t lived up to that high standard that we ought to maintain. To the outside world we have proclaimed our democratic ideals, our moral support of the different people of Europe in obtaining representative government. Have we been as just to our own citizens—to the Negro?”

Hamilton’s father looked surprised and tugged at his moustache.

“Robert doesn’t mean exactly what he—m’m, a—implies,” he offered a verbal straw at which his son might grasp. “Perhaps in some places the Negro isn’t accorded, what shall I say, kindness, or, perhaps better, human treatment. But not here in our city.”

Young Pinkney threw out a life preserver.

“There’s something in what Robert has said. I find that you can get more out of a Negro if you treat him considerately. For instance, in one of our lumber mills we found that the Negroes work best when they are allowed to sing. For a time we made them work quietly, but we found by a series of tests that they actually did more work when permitted to sing, so we reinstituted the custom and our output rose nearly 10 per cent.”

“Nobody in the South really mistreats the coon,” put in Jarvis, shaking his head. “In the North, maybe, where they don’t understand his nature. But not in the South.”

Mrs. Hamilton looked appealingly at him. Margaret still stared at the floor, but Hamilton could no more stop himself than he could that night in Paris.

“No,” he said. “That’s not what I mean at all. Only a brute treats human beings cruelly. I don’t mean to say you—we—that most of us do that. But I do mean to say that perhaps we haven’t given him a fair chance. We don’t let him vote, and we complain that he’s not a loyal citizen. We don’t provide equal educational facilities for him with the white child, and we complain that he’s ignorant. We don’t give him a fair trial in our courts and we accuse him of being a criminal. We crowd him off our sidewalks, we make him sit in Jim Crow cars, we treat him like a dog, and we complain that he’s less than the highest type of human being—and in Paris, the cream of European society shaking hands with a colored man and listening to him sing.”

There was a sound of clearing throats. Margaret turned her eyes from one side of the circle to the other, but there was no escape. The Hamiltons looked self-consciously at each other.

“Well, those Parisians,” began Mr. Forsythe in a small voice, as if his impending relationship with Robert made it incumbent upon him to say something that would relieve the tension; but young Pinkney, with a swift glance toward Margaret, took up the cudgels for white supremacy and the South.

“The French,” he began in his confidential manner, as though the French were the Smiths who lived in the next block, “the French, as you know, Robert, hardly ever see a Negro. He’s a novelty to them. The Frenchman invites him to his receptions just as—as a New York society woman might have an ape at a dinner. He sees only the Negro in a million with a gift for poetry or writing—and he’s never full-blooded. He has not seen the masses.” His voice suddenly became intense. “He hasn’t lived where there are three blacks for every white and breeding faster every year; where his whole white civilization is trembling on a foundation of lazy, ignorant, dirty, diseased, unruly niggers.

“You say, give them the vote. Give it to them, and they’ll fill every office in the state in time and make and enforce the laws that govern white men. For it’s only a matter of time when they’ll be outnumbering us in every locality throughout the South, only a matter of more time when they’ll be controlling politics throughout the country.

“Let them sit on the benches of our courts, and they’ll dispossess us of our property and our rights. Give them higher education, and they’ll become dissatisfied with their lot and revolt. Take away your Jim Crow cars, let them into the hotels and restaurants, and they’ll enter the club and the home. Bring them into the home, give them social equality, wipe cut the anti-marriage laws, and they’ll drag the white race down to their stinking level. Cruel are we?—unjust? Remember there’s only one crime for which a nigger is ever lynched in the South.

“I’ve been brought up by a Negro mammy and our family’s had colored servants. They stuck to us through the Civil War and after. There is a place for that kind of nigger—the good nigger, the nigger who knows his level and keeps it, the nigger who respects white authority and white supremacy. To him the Southerner’s heart is always open. He’ll find him the best friend in the world. But there’s no place for the smart nigger, the white-collared nigger, the nigger who wants what he calls equal rights.

“What does France or, for that matter, the North, know about the colored man? We here, in defense of white supremacy, pure womanhood and law and order, know that we have to make the nigger walk the mark. We know that the strong arm of justice—but the white man’s justice, with bullet, noose and torch, if need be—is the one thing that will keep this country from being overrun by an inferior race. It is a case of ruling or being ruled. We have had our experience, a brief one, at being ruled, by niggers and carpetbaggers after the war. We’re through.

“Maybe you don’t know what the colored races are doing? Japan coming into the conference on equal terms with the great Christian nations. The Hindus revolting. The Turks ready to strike back at the white nations which have shut her back into Asia, where she belongs, and spreading the doctrine of Islam throughout the brown and the black world of Asia and Africa. And now the same thing in America. The colored races outnumber us. Only our brains, our ability to rule, by word and by sword, keeps us on top. But let us once relax our grip, let the nigger only make the United States the mulatto paradise of which he dreams, and the agitator and nigger lover will wish to God he’d never started. The Red, the Yellow, the Brown and the Black people, outnumbering us ten to one, will rise like a black wave—dark water, that’s it—and sweep the white world away.”

Hamilton sat flushed and conscious of the glances directed at him. Pinkney had addressed all his remarks to Robert, as though he were the attacker of the white race and himself the defender. Robert was not particularly keen for an argument, especially with a guest in his own house, for the discussion had grown into that now and threatened to become even more heated. He noticed that Margaret’s eyes were intent upon Pinkney. He was tired from traveling and wished to be alone. Confound these receptions anyway! Why didn’t Pinkney change the subject or yield the floor to someone else? A score of answers came to him. He wondered what Dorothy was doing. He fell to comparing her with Margaret.

He was conscious of murmuring a few hazy affirmations or denials to Pinkney, while his mind was somewhere else. “Well, perhaps”; or “I don’t know about that.” He heard some one making apologies—not exactly apologies, but speaking about his services overseas and complimenting him. They were saying that he was all right anyway and that he was simply taking a side for an argument. Pinkney was still talking. Margaret was still hanging on to his words. He was quoting Du Bois. He was telling Hamilton to read him. He was telling him about diverse threats against the peace of the white world by more or less responsible writers of color. He was quoting Japanese militarists and Hindu pacifists as well as Georgia blacks.

“No, we need you, Hamilton, Captain Hamilton, in the fight for a higher and purer Americanism,” Pinkney was saying. “We need your type to carry on our fight for white supremacy, for the protection of pure womanhood”—his eyes were flashing proudly at Margaret. Hamilton was watching his little gestures without catching all the words. But for some time the circle had broken up into smaller groups and now Pinkney was simply inviting Robert to see him in his office at his earliest convenience. There was an arrangement he wished to discuss which might prove profitable.

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Hamilton, “I’ll drop in,” although he wondered how Pinkney could possibly discuss a profitable arrangement of any kind with him.

XX

Becoming reacquainted with the family and the city was an adventure. During his absence, he noted, the help had been cut down to Mammy Chloe and George. With Virginia Ruth living in New Orleans and himself away from home, the wants of the Hamiltons were really very simple, in spite of their standing in society. They had given up all the horses but one and had kept only the touring car.

“We don’t need much and it simplifies things,” Mr. Hamilton had explained. “You see, your mother is getting, well, is getting to the point where she wishes to be free from the responsibilities of managing a large household and we have even been considering selling the house—we’ve been offered a good price—and renting an apartment.”

Renting an apartment? What a dismal outlook. Robert detested apartments. They were all right in New York, but in the South! He wanted room—room to loaf about and read, room for riding and playing tennis, room to entertain his friends. The tennis court, he noticed, had been allowed to run down and he decided to have it put back in shape the first chance he got.

In the meantime there were so many old friends to visit, so many questions to answer. On the first night home, a reporter from the morning paper had come—it was almost midnight—to interview him, and the reporters from the afternoon papers had followed the next day. They had asked not merely questions about his personal experiences, but questions of which he knew nothing. About the peace conference, about the League of Nations. What did the French think of President Wilson and of Americans in general? Who won the war? And what part did the Southern, and particularly the Georgian, troops play in the war? Of course, he had been with New York troops, but he generously accorded the Southern soldiers their full meed of praise, which they doubtlessly deserved anyway, and of which he had heard indirectly.

And Margaret? He had to become acquainted with her all over again, too. She seemed younger than before he had left her to go to France. It was not alone her dress. He noticed that the women were wearing short skirts in imitation of the Parisiennes. It was not alone in her manner of combing her hair. It lay in a childish freshness that was at once impudent and sophisticated. Margaret had never been a serious-minded young lady, but now she seemed fairly to flutter above the realities of life.

They were returning from a dance one evening, at which Robert had incurred Margaret’s displeasure by attempting to sit out most of his dances. It was almost two o’clock and they were driving down a deserted street. Before the war, midnight had generally been the limit for a dance, unless it was some exceptional occasion, like the annual charity ball, for instance.

“You know, you seem—you seem so much younger than when I left,” said Robert.

“Oh, do I?”

“Yes.”

“And I suppose you don’t like it. You’d want me to stay home every evening and darn socks and go to bed at nine, I suppose. What’s the matter with you, Bob? We used to be such good pals. Don’t, don’t—oh, I don’t know.”

They drove on in silence. How could he explain things to her? How could he make her understand his feelings? He wished, in a way, that he had postponed their engagement, not that they wouldn’t marry eventually anyway, but that it placed him under obligations. He had to escort her to dances and receptions and take her to the theatre. Of course, he got a certain amount of pleasure out of these things, but then he preferred simply to loaf about the house. It was queer, a fellow lay in the mud in Flanders for months under a drizzling sky and dreamed of coming home. Home was pre-eminently a place for loafing. A place where one could sleep as late as one wanted, lounge about in old clothes and sleep some more. Now that one finally did reach home, one found that practise did not square with theory. Theoretically, Hamilton could have stayed in bed all morning. But when his parents were at the breakfast table at eight o’clock, he felt under a moral obligation to do likewise, especially now that the burden of housework had fallen on the shoulders of a single servant. Theoretically, too, he could have retired at eight every evening or stayed up until three in the morning, but practically, there were always social duties to perform. Margaret was always calling him up and claiming him.

There was no use trying to explain a thing like that to Margaret. How could she understand? She would probably think that he was getting old. He was only twenty-six. Had the war aged him? He had always taken Pinkney for a prematurely aged young man, and yet, while Pinkney was able to talk business and finances with the elders of the city, he was able to cut a commanding figure in the younger social set. He knew all the latest steps and even introduced little variations that he had picked up in New Orleans, Charleston and Baltimore.

With Dorothy, he reflected, he could sit idly at a table or walk along the street and express his thoughts—he had need to express them to some one. He wished, too, that Margaret did not so openly disapprove of what he had said in defense of the Negro that evening at his home. For a woman, anyway, he would have preferred that Margaret take the more humane point of view. He was old-fashioned enough to believe that a woman should display the softer virtues.

“What are you thinking about?” Margaret pouted coquettishly. “You haven’t said a word to me for five minutes, excepting monosyllables.”

“Oh, a lot of things. I—”

“Well, you mustn’t. That’s a bad habit. You should live instead of thinking about it. See ‘how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.’”

Margaret’s mood could change from the colloquial to the mock poetic in a moment. When she quoted poetry it was with a little exaggerated air, as though she were pretending to act.

“‘Eat thou and drink,’” she quoted grandiloquently, “‘tomorrow thou shalt die.’ That’s what Howard recites to me sometimes. Don’t you think that’s right?”

“Yes, perhaps it is, but it’s only one point of view. Rossetti, you know, wrote three sonnets, each giving a different viewpoint, and that is only one of them.”

“Oh, is that so? Anyway, I think it’s very beautiful. Don’t you?”

Margaret relapsed into her poetic mood. She would ask Robert if he had heard this or that and then recite it with her coquettishly exaggerated emotion. It was very delightful on the whole. If she wished to sit closer to him, too, or hold his hand she could do it in play, as though it were part of the gestures accompanying the recitation. Some of the poems she quoted, Robert thought splendid, but others were sentimental bits that she had picked up from the fillers in the evening newspaper. She would quote, almost in the same breath with Shakespeare, the rhymed imbecilities of a syndicate humorist whose chief contribution to poesy was his method of arranging the lines so that they were separated by little asterisks and so that one had to read from the bottom line to the top. Probably otherwise nobody would ever read the stuff. The announced object of arranging the lines from bottom to top was to get the reader in the habit of always looking upward and onward to higher things, the highest thing being the rhymster’s signature, Milt Elkron, on the very pinnacle.

There were quarter hours, too, when Margaret would discuss “books,” that is, fiction. Here, too, she would speak of O. Henry, Henry James and James Branch Cabell with indiscriminate enthusiasm, although the first of the three was the only one of whom she had really read more than one volume.

“I didn’t like Wells’ last book. It was very disappointing. Not much plot. Too heavy. But Harold Bell Wright has a corking story. It’s just like life!”

Robert liked Margaret’s make-believe mood, during which she pretended to be giving expression to some inner spirit through the medium of verse. Pretense, after all, was something. And she pretended without in the least attempting to deceive. It was just a game. Of course, she expected him to return her little sallies with others in kind or with graceful, flowery compliments, which he could do skilfully. For instance, if she, coming to a dark spot in the road, and letting go of his arm, suddenly cried: “Thou know’st the wash of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek,” he would reply: “Lady, by yonder blessed moon, I swear”—or something about Stygian darkness, and they would both laugh.

“Why don’t you ever write poetry?” asked Margaret, as they stopped before her house. “I think you ought to write something splendid. I have a trade-last for you.”

“Oh, have you? What is it? I’m all ears.”

“But you must tell me one first,” she pouted.

That struck him as another one of her childish absurdities.

“Oh, I—a—know some one who thinks you’re the prettiest girl in Corinth.”

“Do you? Who’s that?”

“Guess?”

“Can’t.”

“Try.”

“It isn’t, it isn’t you? Oh, that isn’t fair? You just made that up!”

“Oh, but it is though. Of course, I think you’re the prettiest girl in Corinth.”

He caught her in his arms and kissed her to prove it.

“Has to be some one else! Has to be some one else!” Margaret insisted, with fascinating mock childishness.

“Well, then,” Robert thought a moment, “it’s Howard Pinkney. Now are you satisfied?”

She shook her head, with a little smile.

“No. That’s just as bad. He tells me that himself every time I see him. But I’ll tell you anyway.”

The compliment was a minor one. Some elderly, romantic woman, whom Robert dimly remembered, had thought he looked like a poet—like a picture she had of Rupert Brooke—a far-fetched likeness.

“And now,” Margaret was standing at the door, her head thrown back, her eyes shining like dark stars:

“‘Sweet, goodnight!

This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Goodnight, goodnight! as sweet repose and rest

Come to thy heart as that within my breast!’”

Her make-believe mood again. She was playing at being in love. She blew him a tantalizing kiss before the illusion had time to die, and disappeared into the house. Robert stood there for a moment. He realised that Margaret was only playing, that she had probably learned the words—yes, he even remembered where she had learned them—while taking the rôle of Juliet in her senior class play. Still the objective world was a series of illusions. What matter what Margaret was thinking or feeling within that pretty little head if she could always create such illusions. If she could always create them. He walked slowly back to his car. A cloud momentarily obscured the moon. The shadowy world of silver turned to black and then back to silver. If she could always do that.

In his room he found his official orders where he had stacked them on the chifferobe two days ago. He had forgotten to sort them. He yawned and began undressing leisurely. His hand brushed against the documents and he paused to stack them up again. Here was a copy of the telegram appointing him a second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps, the order directing him to appear at Camp Eustis, the order assigning him to his company. And what was that scribbled across one of the envelopes? A poem.

“The agéd pilgrim hastens on the road

Nor stops to pluck the flowers by the way

Lest Death o’ertake him ere the close of day.”

It sounded familiar. He read on to the end:

“And here and there a scarlet memory.”

He suddenly remembered. Dorothy. McCall. McCall had scribbled the poem on an old envelope. Robert remembered lending it to him—in the hospital. But—yes, he had been right all the time. By a sort of instinct. He undressed, turned off the lights and raised the shades. The moonlight lay like a river of silver across the shadowy lawn. A world of illusion and of beauty. Tomorrow, he said, he would ask Margaret to set the day. They should be married as quickly as possible.

XXI

The next morning Robert awoke only after he had been called three times. The sun was shining brightly into his window and he realized that it was past the family breakfast hour. He lay in bed thinking of what he would do, found that he was still in bed and stretched leisurely. As long as he was late for breakfast he might as well be still later. He suddenly remembered his resolve to see Margaret and induce her to set their wedding as soon as possible.

Of course, he could not with propriety visit her this morning, after having seen her only a few hours before. He would wait until afternoon. In the meantime he must straighten those papers.

As his eyes fell upon the old envelope again he had an impulse to tear it, another to send it to McCall, and a third, which he followed, to keep it with his other records. He would keep it with certain other letters, as a woman might keep old rose petals—not to bloom again, but to remind one of the past.

He noticed a card, which he had at first mistaken for the postal ordering him to report at Plattsburg. Now he saw it was a white card with the words “Non Silba Sed Anthra” in large letters on the top line. “Non Silba Sed Anthra?” Where had that come from? Let’s see. That was Latin. Anyway, he knew what two of the words meant. He went to the bookcase and pulled out his Latin dictionary. There it was.

Now he remembered. That fat man had given it to him. Oh, yes, Jarvis. He picked up the card and read it:

“Sir, six thousand men who are preparing for eventualities have their eyes upon you. You are being weighed in the balance!

“The Call is coming! Are you able and qualified to respond?

“Discuss this matter with no one.

“Oohay-Oohay-Oopay.”

It seemed rather ridiculous, some sort of a practical joke, until he remembered the society with an equally ridiculous name—Trick Track Tribe—of which Jarvis and the Pinkneys had spoken. The society that was to protect the white race, womanhood, the United States Constitution and several other things. That reminded Robert that he had promised Howard Pinkney to see him.

Before his plate Robert found two letters. The one with the Chicago postmark he opened first and read over his oatmeal. Mrs. Hamilton came in and sat opposite, although she had long since eaten her breakfast.

“Oh, mother,” he exclaimed, “a letter from Bill McCall!”

“One of your college friends?”

“No. He’s the man I’ve been telling you about. Don’t you know? That Chicago newspaper man!”

“Oh, yes, it’s too bad that he doesn’t live in Corinth.”

“I’ve never really told you or dad all that he’s done for me.”

He laid the letter to one side and looked grave.

“He’s going to have an operation—a serious operation—on his eye. It’s going to take place tomorrow morning and he writes about it as though it were a joke!”

“Well, dear, maybe it’s not so serious as you think. Surgeons can do such marvelous things nowadays. Don’t you think you’d better finish your breakfast? Did he get it in the war?”

Robert nodded.

“Yes. I never told you the details. I was afraid it might—upset you, but Bill was wounded while trying to save me.”

Briefly he sketched the account of his rescue, minimizing as much as possible the danger to himself. His mother covered her face with her hands.

“If I had known it at the time I couldn’t have stood it, Robert.”

She took a seat beside him, placed her arm about his shoulders and rested her head against him. Mammy Chloe’s dark face appeared for a moment in the swinging door leading to the kitchen, a steaming plate of corn fritters in her hand, but she did not enter. Robert took his mother’s hand and was conscious of innumerable little details of color and form.

“Just think,” he said, “not to be able to see anything!” Not to be able to see, he thought, the sun gleaming through a window and falling in bands of gold across the blue rug, with tiny dust motes dancing in them. Not to see snowy linen or shining silverware or glittering glass. Not to see the warm glow of polished rosewood and the cheerful glow of ivory woodwork. Not to see one’s mother or one’s own face in the mirror. He shut his eyes for a moment.

“And to think that I can’t do anything,” he said at length. “That I can’t even talk to him. And he writes about ‘going over the top once more.’”

His mother tried to comfort him.

“I’m sure he’ll come through it all right,” she said. “It’s too late to send him a letter, but you could send him a telegram.”

“Yes.” Hamilton rose. “I must do that.” He took up the second envelope mechanically and opened it. It was a card like the one Jarvis had given him, with the same heading: “Non Silba Sed Anthra” across the top. The Latin annoyed him, the childish air of mystery, evidently designed to impress persons who did not own Latin dictionaries. There was the same silly signature, Oohay-Oohay-Oopay—pig Latin, of course, for H. H. P., Howard Pinkney. Who else would be asinine enough to think of it? Another message, designed to be mysterious, followed the heading:

“Sir:

“You have been weighed in the balance and found not wanting!

“Strong Men—Brave Men (evidently Pinkney himself)—R-E-A-L Men (probably little Jarvis). We need such men. We know you are one.

“The Bogeys of the Fourth Dimension will shortly issue their call. Be discreet, preserve silence and bide the coming.

“Discuss this matter with no one.

“Oohay-Oohay-Oopay.”

Robert was thinking of McCall. The follow-up invitation of the Trick Track Tribe jarred on him. He thrust the card in his pocket and walked out to send his telegram.

As he walked toward his street car he offered little prayers to a God whom he now realized he had invoked all too seldom of late. He wondered why he should have been saved and McCall chosen to undergo this ordeal. And how would Dorothy take it? Would she be at his bedside?

In Paris the operation had been accepted fatalistically and in a spirit of bravado by both of them. That was because it lay still so far in the future and, too, perhaps, because they then still retained the war-time psychology, the callous outlook upon life and death that frequent contact with these had formed.

The car jolted and was dirty. The blacks, he noticed, were squeezed together in a section dirtier than the one in which he sat. It was growing warm. In another few weeks summer would be there.

Pinkney was just leaving the telegraph office.

“Oh, yes, I was going to see you today,” said Robert with a guilty feeling.

“So you got our summons from the Fourth Dimension?” inquired Pinkney with an earnest smile. “We need brave men, real men, Hamilton, to carry on our work.” There was an allusion to the flaming rood that Robert did not understand and he was able to get away only long enough to send a short message to McCall. Pinkney took his arm and insisted on escorting him to his office. On the way they paused to exchange a few words with acquaintances, some of whom referred mysteriously to the coming concilium.

Pinkney’s office was a truly magnificent one, just off the main office of the Corinth Lumber Company, with a commanding sweep of the city’s principal thoroughfare. One’s feet sank into a soft, thick rug of mauve and one’s eye immediately took in the glass-covered mahogany desk and the decorations on the wall—a silk American flag under glass, his captain’s commission in the home guards, a college diploma, a membership in some civic organization and a poem “To My Mother”—all framed. Not until they had come quite into the room did they notice that they were not alone. A rather tall, wavy-haired man with shrewd blue eyes and a straight-line mouth was standing at the window, chewing a cigar. He wore a light checked suit and tan oxfords, and had the appearance of looking older than he really was. As he saw Pinkney he waved his right hand in an indefinite salute without, at the same time, straightening up.

“Captain Hamilton,” said Pinkney, “this is Mr. Griffith.”

They shook hands, Robert mumbled an acknowledgment and Mr. Griffith said he was very glad to meet him.

“Mr. Griffith—later you’ll know him by a rather more pretentious title, Robert—is what I might term the brains of the Tribe,” remarked Pinkney. “Won’t you gentlemen take a seat? Now we can talk more comfortably. Cigars? Oh, try a good brand.”

Griffith smiled so that all his teeth, including a gold tooth in front and several gold-filled ones, shone.

“That’s just some o’ his bull. Don’t you pay any attention to him,” he laughed.

“No, that’s the whole truth. You know, Captain, while you were fighting for civilization on Flanders Fields, Griffith was one of the men who was fighting the good fight over here through the most potent weapon that man has ever devised.” Griffith grinned as though Pinkney were quoting a phrase with which he was familiar, or, perhaps, had even coined himself. “That weapon is nothing else than publicity!”

Hamilton nodded. Since his return he had learned that cotton, that wood, that conservation of coal and food, that the county councils of defense, that the women, that the Y. M. C. A., that a hundred different things had won the war, and he was not surprised to hear now that publicity was the most potent weapon of mankind.

“Griffith here is an old newspaper man.”

“Oh, I know a newspaper man,” said Hamilton, to make talk. “One of my best friends in the army was correspondent for the Chicago Times.”

“What’s his name?”

“McCall.”

“Sure. I’ve read his stuff. So he was over with your outfit. Gee, he could have cleaned up if he’d been home.”

Pinkney resumed charge of the conversation and employed it in briefly sketching the more recent portion of Griffith’s biography. He had been connected with some newspaper when the war broke out, what connection, was evidently unimportant, Pinkney casting all newspaper men in one huge category as he might walnut logs or hardwood. At the outbreak of the World War he had foreseen the tremendous importance of publicity and had offered his services to various organizations in raising funds, recruiting members, and so forth. He had been secretary of the first drive ever held in Corinth to raise money for the Belgian war sufferers. Later when the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the Salvation Army, the Near East, the Chinese, the French and several local and state organizations had started their drives Griffith’s services had been in demand.

“Corinth went over the top on every drive through this man,” said Pinkney proudly.

The expression “over the top” grated on Hamilton. It was the same phrase McCall had used in describing his coming operation.

“Weren’t you the first man to use ‘over the top’ to describe exceeding a quota?” asked Pinkney.

“Some say I was,” smiled Griffith. “But I’ve got to be going, folks. I’m mapping out a campaign to cover the entire United States.” He leaned over the desk, and drew diagrams on it with his finger as he spoke. There were hard, practical lines about his mouth, and his eyes narrowed almost to slits. “See, we’ll cover every section. We’ll have a perfect military organization with a commander-in-chief at the head.”

He went on, sketching rapidly with his forefinger on the mahogany his idea of a feudalistic system that would make the Tribe all powerful in the United States. There were strategic positions to be carried at all costs—certain localities in each state which offered an easy entrance. There were districts, corresponding to congressional districts, that must be covered by an army of Bogeys. Here was a citadel hard to break through. Here a breach in the walls. He waxed more and more enthusiastic over his plan. His words came more and more forcibly. His forefinger flashed faster and faster. His eyes gleamed. He leaned over the desk and pounded on it with his fist.

A transformed figure, Hamilton thought, from the man who had slouched against the wall when he had first entered—an almost fanatical leader, carried away with an idea. The plan was made up of bits of military science, of salesmanship, perhaps picked up through some correspondence course, of the technique of carrying on drives. Out of his miscellaneous reading, evidently, and out of an idea upon which he had been brooding perhaps for years, this man had evolved his huge “campaign.” Hamilton guessed that he was a few years above the draft age and reflected ironically what might have happened if Griffith, with his almost insane imagination, had been placed in charge of a body of troops in France.

“And we’re going to have you with us, Captain Hamilton,” exclaimed Griffith at last, shaking hands and making for the door. “Got a blank? All right, let him fill it out. The concilium meets Tuesday night. Only a few more days and we can get him in on this. Well, I’m glad I met you, Captain.”

Griffith put on his soft felt hat a little to one side and walked out. Hamilton made a movement as if to follow, too.

“Wait a minute, Robert, fill this out!”

Pinkney removed a card from his drawer and handed it to Robert.

“What we need is men who have been overseas, preferably officers, in order to get the soldiers interested in it.”

Robert looked at the row of questions on the card. Was his motive in answering serious? His age, occupation, birthplace, length of local residence and so forth.

“This is worse than an income tax questionnaire,” laughed Robert. “They want to know the color of my hair and eyes, where my parents were born, and my religion. Well, that’s easy enough. But what’s the idea of asking my politics?”

Pinkney smiled. “Oh, some of the questions, I suppose, aren’t really necessary. But we wish to be absolutely exclusive. Suppose a man should answer that he was a Socialist or an Anarchist?”

“Why in the devil would an Anarchist want to join the Trick Track Tribe? He’s opposed to all government. Why should he pay dues to belong to a sort of feudal government, according to the way Griffith outlined it?”

“Well, he might—I suppose he really wouldn’t, but that really isn’t it. Oh, you’ll find out after you join.”

Robert had been asked to join other secret organizations. In every case there had been a certain air of mystery about it and a great to do about selecting only persons of a high level for membership, and, although he had joined only the exclusive Corinth Club, he had always suspected that the mysteriousness and air of exclusiveness of the others had been maintained principally with a view to making membership seem more difficult and hence more desirable. A few questions struck his attention, however, as he jotted down his answers:

“Were your parents born in the United States of America?

“Are you a Gentile or a Jew?

“Do you believe in the principles of Pure Americanism?

“Do you believe in white supremacy?

“What is your religious faith?

“Of what church are you a member, if any?

“Of what religious faith are your parents?

“Do you owe any kind of allegiance to any foreign nation, government, institution, sect, people, ruler or person?”

Robert finished answering the questions and signed a statement “asserting and affirming” that the questions had been truthfully answered.

“Well,” he rose, “I don’t know whether I’ve answered all your questions satisfactorily or not—”

“We’ll let you know,” Pinkney waved the card dry and extended his hand. “But don’t worry about that. The initiation will be next Tuesday. We’ll tell you exactly where to be. Don’t forget!”

Robert walked out of the office with Pinkney’s injunction ringing in his ear. After all, the insistence of every one to have him join the Tribe was rather flattering. But the rest of the day his mind was not so much on the coming ceremony as on the outcome of McCall’s operation.

XXII

Robert did not ask Margaret to set the day for their marriage that day. It was no time for him to be planning his nuptials while his buddy was risking his life in the hospital. He told Margaret of the operation and she sympathized with him.

“What a dreadful thing the war is,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d care to go anywhere under the circumstances. I can just understand the way you feel. We might just sit at home tonight if you wish and I’ll sing you some ballads.”

She confided her own troubles to him. Difficulty in getting the proper clothing in Corinth. Difficulty in getting her parents to appreciate her more liberal views. Difficulty in getting her mother to allow her to discard corsets. What had happened to the comparatively demure miss that Robert had left behind when he had left Corinth? Two years ago she would no more have dreamed of mentioning corsets than she would have dreamed of smoking a pipe. As for not wearing them, Robert remembered, with amusement, that whereas preachers in describing Corinth as a second Babylon two years ago had pointed to the fact that women were pinching in their waists and allowing their skirts to drag on the ground for the sake of increasing their fascination in the eyes of men, they were now decrying the shameless Jezebels who went with skirts but to their knees and without certain garments that women had always worn. Times had changed.

“I’m thinking of bobbing my hair,” said Margaret. She was curled up on the couch beside him in a childish posture which she would have thought unladylike before the war. “Irene Castle has bobbed hers. But mother has a fit whenever I mention the subject. She won’t even let me smoke. What do you think about it?”

“Oh, I suppose I’m a little old-fashioned—”

“All the men are like that. Howard says the same thing. Dad says it’s immoral. For heaven’s sakes, what’s the way you’ve got your hair combed got to do with morality? Or whether you smoke or not? Men can do everything and the minute a woman wants to do something they do, every one sits on her.”

Robert laughed.

“You look exactly like a small child protesting because you can’t have another piece of candy.”

Margaret pretended to cry in vexation.

“That’s the trouble with you men, you refuse to take us seriously.”

“Well, if you were old and ugly, I suppose I could sit down and argue the thing out with you. But in that case, of course, I wouldn’t care if you clipped your hair or chewed tobacco. Taking you as you are, however, and as I expect you to be to me, I prefer you with your hair exactly as it is—even if it is hard to comb—and without any cigarette between your ruby lips. Of course, in France I saw many splendid women with bobbed hair, and of course, every one smokes there. But that was Paris—and I don’t think you’d look well with a cigarette.”

“That’s no reason at all.”

“Perhaps it isn’t. Still, why shouldn’t it be? Suppose you didn’t look as well with bobbed hair or smoking a cigarette. Shouldn’t that be reason enough?”

“But supposing I thought I looked just as well? If we were married would you forbid me to bob my hair?”

Hamilton considered.

“Not that it would do any good, perhaps, but I think I would.”

Margaret sat up very suddenly.

“There,” she wrenched the ring from her finger, “if you expect to control me after we’re married, we might as well call it off now before it’s too late.”

Robert turned white and his hand trembled as it went out. He stammered unintelligibly.

“Wh-why—why?”

Margaret suddenly laughed.

“I ought to have a snapshot of you. You really thought I meant it. You put your hand out to take it. There, now you may have the pleasure of putting it back again.”

She moved closer to him and placed her right arm about him as he replaced the ring.

“My, you look solemn. You look as though you were actually sorry that I didn’t give you the ring back.”

“No, but you did shock me. Why did you do it, dear?” As he said this he was dimly aware of the fact that there was a trace of truth in what she had said. A very faint trace. He drew her to him and patted her dark hair slowly.

“Well, that is what I wanted,” she blushed. “You’ve acted so cool lately. You haven’t kissed me once this evening.”

“Oh, yes, I did.”

“I mean since you came in. You seem always thinking about something else. So I gave you this shock to, to—”

He kissed her warmly on the lips. He noticed her eyes close and her head tilt back and against him. He heard her sigh and wondered that he could so coolly watch her the while. Poor child, she expected his love. He drew her still more closely to him.

“You haven’t said a word about—about our wedding.”

Robert flushed.

“No, darling. I haven’t talked over business matters with father yet. He seems so busy lately. But as soon as I do we’ll talk it over.”

Love is a peculiar thing, Hamilton thought on the way home. He felt sorry for Margaret. He sympathized with her. Still he had no desire to fondle her. He had done so simply because he knew that she desired it. Was this love? Or was it something else?

Perhaps it was the highest form of love—the love springing from sympathy. And still he had postponed making the decision as to the date of their marriage. Well, by right he should talk to his father first about the business. Here a whole month had gone by during which he had simply loafed about the house and attended innumerable society affairs.

He decided that he must return the poem to McCall, or rather to Dorothy, with a little note explaining how he had found it. Margaret’s actions had given him a new insight into such things. He appreciated better how Dorothy would miss it. He could enclose the poem and the note in another letter to Levin, whose address he had. Levin would surely know where to reach her. Perhaps it would be better to wait until tomorrow, until after the operation. In any case Dorothy would be glad to get the poem back again, but he would know better tomorrow how to word the letter to her.

XXIII

Robert was inspecting the rose bushes with his mother late the next day when Mammy Chloe appeared at the door.

“The telegram company want Mistah Cap’n Robe’t Hamilton at de phone.”

“All right, just a minute.”

“Dat’s what I tell ’em.”

Hamilton was very white, a nervous smile about the corners of his mouth. Mrs. Hamilton gave his arm a little pat:

“Everything will be all right.”

Robert was conscious of her watching him as he hurried up the walk and into the doorway. He could see the patterns of the stone blocks and the lines made by the moss. The branch of an oak tree hung over him and he heard birds chirping in the rustling foliage. Life seemed to pause, to hang between the ticking of a watch. He heard insects humming.

The operator was reading the message, mechanically, by syllables, so that they barely made sense. But he understood. The operation had been successful! He ran out of the house excitedly, waving his arms and sputtering. His mother understood. They both talked excitedly for a moment without listening to each other.

“I knew it would be all right. I knew it would be all right,” Mrs. Hamilton was repeating over and over again.

“Let’s have some one over here tonight,” said Robert excitedly. “Didn’t we use to know some one named McCall?”

“McCall?”

“Or something like that? I must call up Margaret.”

“You don’t mean the McFallons?”

“Yes, I haven’t seen them since I came back. Don’t they come here any more?”

Mrs. Hamilton looked down.

“No, Robert,” she said quietly.

“But I thought you used to be such good friends.”

He ran into the house to telephone Margaret. He had an impulse to run about the city spreading the news, when he recalled that no one knew who McCall was or had the least interest in him.

“I’m going to have some fellows over tonight,” he sang out to his mother. “Is it all right?”

“I’ll be only too glad.”

“I think I’ll call up Jack Perry. He’s back now and Tom McBride, I haven’t seen them in an age. And, of course, Howard Pinkney isn’t such a bad scout.”

“Yes, Howard is a fine chap.”

“You—you haven’t anything against the others have you—Jack and Tom?” Hamilton had perceived something in her praise of Howard that might have been interpreted as a criticism of them.

“No, not against them.” Mrs. Hamilton was silent for a moment. She stooped down to pluck off a dry leaf, then rose and brushed back a wisp of loose hair. “But I thought you were going to join the Tribe.”

“Yes, Tuesday night.”

“Well, don’t you know that they’re Catholics?”

“Who, the Perrys and the McBrides?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t thought about it at all, but what if they are? McCall is a Catholic, too.”

“Well, you know, dear, that Catholics can’t belong to the Trick Track Tribe.”

“Well, what of it? I can’t belong to the Knights of Columbus. But I think Mr. Perry and Jack both belong. Yes, I remember they do. That never kept them from inviting us. No, that’s impossible. Why some of our most prominent men here are Catholics. Half, say a third anyway, of the Corinth Club are Catholics. What’s belonging to a lodge got to do with it anyway?”

“Well, you may call them, dear, if you wish. Certainly I have no objections. Personally I should be glad to have both Mrs. Perry and Mrs. McBride over. But—well, you call them.”

Hamilton frowned. As he kept growing older he kept bumping into stronger and more surprising prejudices. At three he had learned of the existence of that line between the whites and the blacks. At seven he learned the sharp distinction between the rich and the poor. Next it had been Jew and Gentile. For a few years he had almost forgotten about these social barriers. Now came the most surprising one of all, the most difficult to understand.

Jack Perry and Tom McBride were both at home—it was nearly six—and expressed their delight at the invitation. The Perrys were out of the city, but Tom would ask his parents to come.

“I told you they’d come,” said Robert to his mother. “It’s almost time for dinner. They’re coming a little after eight.”

Mrs. Hamilton looked surprised.

“I don’t know where you could have gotten such an idea, mother. Why, how is it possible?” He tried to tell her what was in his mind. The war. The country united to win. The allied soldiers of many different nations and races and religions. And the armistice only signed a few months ago. But, of course, she knew all that.

Mr. Hamilton had been called out of town on business and they ate alone. There was joy in Robert’s heart. McCall would be able to see. He must write him immediately and send Dorothy the poem. The telephone bell ringing, broke into his thoughts. It was Tom. His parents had made another engagement for the evening of which he had known nothing and like a dutiful son he would be obliged to accompany them. Tomorrow night he would also be engaged. But he’d see him some other time. Robert was turning away when the bell rang again. It was Jack Perry. He had phoned before but the line was busy. He had suddenly remembered that he had an engagement with someone. With whom? Why, with Tom McBride.

“Why, what’s the matter with you, Jack?” asked Robert.

“Nothing,” said Jack. “I simply forgot for the moment. By the way, I understand that you’ve joined the Trick Track Tribe.”

“No, not yet.” Was Jack trying to pump him? He remembered suddenly that joining the Tribe was supposed to be a secret. Jack’s voice became hard over the phone, hard and formally polite.

“Mr. McBride and I are going to attend the Knights of Columbus, a little business meeting. Tell Pinkney and Griffith and the Rev. Mr. Lister that. A Knights of Columbus meeting. Goodbye.”

“But listen, old man—”

It was too late. Perry had rung off. He returned to the table crestfallen and repeated his conversation to his mother.

“The Knights of Columbus!” she said. “You see they were right!”

“Who were right?”

“Howard and Mr. Griffith. They were over here almost six months ago, just before dad joined the Tribe. They were arguing about the power of the Knights of Columbus. It was hard to believe all they said, but they brought proofs of their activities.”

“What activities? I don’t believe it. Why, at camp, I used to be in the K. C. hut as much as the Y. M. C. A. And now they’re starting schools for the ex-service men.”

“It’s an organization to control politics in the United States for the benefit of the Catholic church.”

Robert laughed.

“Mother, do you really believe that? Who’s the governor of our state? He’s a Protestant. Who’s the mayor of our city? Another Protestant. Who are our aldermen? Mostly Protestants—a few Catholics.”

“Ask Dad about the Catholic problem when he comes back, or Howard,” suggested Mrs. Hamilton. “Really, Robert, I don’t know much about it, except from what I’ve heard at the discussions. Of course, there are secrets that dad cannot tell me. But I know that since he joined the Tribe we haven’t associated with any Catholics. Some very fine people, too. Some of my best friends.”

She sighed and looked thoughtfully down at the tablecloth.

“Dad wouldn’t go over to the Perrys after he joined and he always managed to stay away when they came here. I have nothing against them. But you know how it is.”

“Is it that way all over Corinth?” asked Robert. “I haven’t noticed. Yes, I have. There haven’t been any Catholics at most of the functions. And there did seem to be some dissention at the club. There’s no sense to it. It’s got to stop. Why should a fellow risk his life in Europe fighting for democracy and come home to find his own town torn up by the most undemocratic barriers in the world—religion.

“We’re forming an organization—that is the veterans of the war—a democratic organization where every one is on the same footing as every one else. Even rank means nothing there. The private has the same rights and privileges as the general. Race, social position, religion—all these distinctions have been swept away. The American Legion is for all who have been in the service. Why, it doesn’t even matter whether they enlisted or were drafted! That’s real Americanism. But Pinkney keeps talking about the Tribe’s campaign for Americanism. There must be some mistake somewhere. If the Knights of Columbus are going into politics and stirring up religious prejudice, it’s got to stop. I don’t know exactly what Pinkney means by white supremacy, aside from the supremacy it naturally has, and I don’t see the necessity of a society standing for pure womanhood—why that’s part of every man’s religion, of every social and moral law in the world!—but I do know what Americanism means. I can see that it’s needed here and I’m going into the Tribe because I believe a powerful organization like that can help spread it!”

XXIV

Late Tuesday night Robert was picked up at a street corner which had been designated, by an automobile filled with white-robed and hooded figures. The Tribesman beside him placed his finger on his lips and the journey was made in silence. It was a fantastic ride, through the dimly lighted streets, then through the shadowy suburbs, into the country. There was a full moon and under it the earth looked a grotesque thing of shadows—a phantasy in black and white.

As they left the city, Robert noticed other cars, with similar loads of hooded figures, ahead and behind them, all moving silently and without lights. Within a half hour they had reached a large field, the fences guarding which had been pulled down, and in the center of which a circle of cars was being parked under the silent direction of Tribesmen.

Robert and the members of his party dismounted and crossed the field to a thickly-wooded glade, at the edge of which a narrow path was faintly visible in the moonlight. Other candidates joined him until there were perhaps one hundred. These were formed into a long column by means of whispers and gestures. It was exactly midnight by Robert’s wrist watch when suddenly a tall figure in white, bearing aloft a fiery cross, appeared. He marched to the head of the column, the light of the rood casting a ruddy reflection on the upturned faces of the initiates and on the figures in white and causing the shadows to dance back and forth grotesquely. As the bearer of the fiery cross moved slowly forward, the neophytes in groups of ten, each conducted by a Tribesman, followed along the path in the grove, which now gleamed and faded before their footsteps.

It was an awe-inspiring sight. Hamilton was carried back to his childhood, to his first fear of shadows and spectres. Weird ghost stories flickered through his mind. He remembered strange rites of primitive peoples—the initiation of headhunters into their bloody mysteries, of the fearful Thugs, of the secret societies of the Bantus. The shadows clutched about him and the blaze of light flamed up and down ahead.

He had proceeded perhaps fifty feet, when he was suddenly aware of a hooded figure standing motionless beside the path, a grim sentinel, peering at him through the slits in his mask. Fifty feet farther, at a bend in the path, stood another sentinel. They had passed six of these silent figures in white, when the winding column was brought to a sudden halt. The bearer of the cross was being questioned by a guardian. His voice rang through the grove:

“What if any of your party should prove a traitor?”

The reply came in a deep, solemn voice to the hushed initiates:

“He would be immediately banished in disgrace from the Fourth Dimension without fear or favor, conscience would tenaciously torment him, remorse repeatedly revile him, and direful things would befall him.”

Again the questioner:

“Does he know this?”

And again the rejoinder:

“All this he knows. He has heard and he must heed.”

A countersign was given, the guard stepped back, and the column moved forward. Hamilton found himself in a clearing, from the center of which rose a rude altar and about which hundreds of hooded Tribesmen stood massed. The bearer of the fiery cross circled the clearing. The groups of neophytes followed.

The white forms, the flickering light, all had confused Hamilton and he now perceived that the Tribesmen were standing in a double rank, through which he was marching. Four times the group stopped before a Tribesman, who sat exalted on a high chair or rock—exactly what, it was too dark to see—and harangued them. There were questions about obedience, about secrecy, about fidelity, about tribal fealty. Robert was too confused to hear all the questions or to understand those he heard.

The groups of neophytes had once more become a line. The bearer of the fiery rood stalked behind the altar and thrust the flaming emblem in the ground. It was the sole light. A masked figure stepped forward and held out his hand:

“Always remember that to keep the oath means to you, honor, happiness and life; but to violate it means disgrace, dishonor and death.” It was a voice of frenzy. The flames and shadows danced weirdly. The moon gleamed through the black trees. The silent Tribesmen peered through the slits in their hoods.

“You will place your left hand over your heart and raise your right hand to heaven.”

Robert obeyed and, in chorus with the other initiates, repeated the words of the oath:

“I, in the presence of God and man, most solemnly pledge, promise and swear”—and so forth to the end. It was an oath of obedience to the sublime authority of the Tribe and to the head of the Tribe, Joseph Andrew Lister.

Then the oath of secrecy, in which the candidates swore that they would rather die than divulge any of the secrets.

Next an oath to work for the good of the Tribe in spite of personal or other conflicting motives.

Last of all an oath of fealty to the Tribe, of protection of members.

“I swear that I will keep secure to myself a secret of a Tribesman when same is committed to me in the sacred bond of Tribal fealty—the crime of violating THIS solemn oath, treason against the United States of America, rape and malicious murder alone excepted.” Malicious murder? What could that mean? Why the qualification of murder? For a fleeting moment Robert was puzzled. But he went on mechanically with the oath.

“I most solemnly assert and affirm that to the government of the United States of America and any state thereof of which I may become a resident I sacredly swear an unqualified allegiance above any other and every kind of government in the whole world. I here and now pledge my life, my property, my vote and my sacred honor to uphold its flag, its Constitution and its constitutional laws and will protect, defend and enforce same unto death.

“I swear that I will most zealously and valiantly shield and preserve by any and all justifiable means and methods (justifiable? Again a question came into Robert’s mind. But he dismissed it.) the sacred constitutional rights and privileges of free public schools, free speech, free press, separation of church and state, liberty, white supremacy, just laws and the pursuit of happiness against any encroachment of any nature by any person, persons, political party or parties, religious sect or people, native, naturalized or foreign, of any race, color, creed, lineage or tongue whatsoever.”

The head of the Tribe, himself, who had previously impressed on the candidates the sacredness of the oath now took from the altar a water bottle. Robert noticed, for the first time, that, beside the bottle, the altar held also an American flag, a Bible and a dagger.

“With this transparent, life-giving, powerful, God-given fluid,” he began, his voice rising and falling in even cadences, “more precious and far more significant than all the sacred oils of the ancients, I set you apart from the men of your daily association to the great and honorable task you have voluntarily allotted yourselves as citizens of the Fourth Dimension, Hunters of the Trick Track Tribe. You will kneel upon your right knee.”

Robert felt as though he were in the midst of some weird nightmare. He had had that impression all evening. Now it seemed deepened—the figures in white, the darkness, the eerie moon, the gleaming cross, the shadows. But what was happening now, or about to happen, seemed too utterly unreal. It was like one of those points in a dream where the dreamer cries out “I am only dreaming,” and strives desperately to awake. It could not be possible! Still the Tribal Head held the water bottle. Was he about to perform a baptismal rite? Robert had no particularly delicate religious scruples. Still, the burlesquing of the sacrament of baptism shocked his sensibilities. He would have been equally shocked if someone had trampled on the American flag—if someone had cruelly trampled on the flag of any other nation. It was fanatical. Robert was conscious of a quartette, somewhere far away, singing a hymn in low, yet distinct tones. Something about “Home, country and tribe.” He noticed that he was kneeling with the hundred other candidates.

The voice of the Tribal Head rose:

“I dedicate you in body, in mind, in spirit and in life to the holy service of our country and our tribe, our home, each other and humanity.”

He advanced and poured a few drops of water on each candidate’s neck.

“In body,” Hamilton heard him say as a drop fell on his back; “in mind,” a few drops fell on his head; “in spirit,” the officer sprinkled a few drops on his own hand and tossed them upward; “in life.” He moved his hand in a circle above the candidates’ heads. The baptism was ended. Officers and Tribesmen fell on their knees and prayed.

The fiery cross flickered above them. The black shadows danced faster. A cloud obscured the moon. Robert was a Tribesman.

XXV

It was the day after his initiation into the Tribe. Robert had slept late, the strange ceremony having run incessantly through his mind in a series of shadowy dreams. Words of the oaths had repeated themselves, the Tribal hymn, the threat of death to the disloyal: “Remember that to keep this oath means honor, happiness, and life; but to violate it means disgrace, dishonor and death. (Then, ironically)—May honor, happiness and life be yours.”

The ceremony had been impressive. It had impressed with an idea of primal power—the power of men, freed from all shackles, and united by a pure, strong, simple faith. Christianity. Racial purity. Patriotism. Womanhood. Ideals which it was well to raise up, to fight for if necessary. And Americanism. Through such an organization of men of common birth, religion and ideals, everything could be accomplished. Yes, he was proud of being a Tribesman!

Last night the baptism ritual had shocked him, but now the towering seriousness of the Tribe justified it. Exactly how the Tribe meant to function Robert did not know. Doubtless it would be explained to him later. He was eager to know. Griffith had given some hint at Pinkney’s office. He wished to know and to serve. Someone had said something about the Knights of Columbus trying to control politics. But that had been his mother. Yet she had overheard others, Tribesmen, talking about it. Could that be true? Could so un-American a thing be crushed by the Tribe?

Robert found Mr. Hamilton walking up and down the porch, chewing the end of his cigar.

“That was a tremendous thing, governor,” said Robert, “I think the most tremendous thing in my life.

“I shall never forget it as long as I live. And I want to take an active interest in it. Now—”

He hesitated. Mr. Hamilton cleared his throat.

“Now,” Robert continued. “I’m ready to start in again. My wound is practically well, I’ve had a good rest and I mean to pitch in wherever I’m wanted.”

“I wanted you to have a good rest, Bob, before I told you. Let’s sit down over here on the bench. We’ve seen this moment coming a long time—mother and I—and we’ve shrunk from it. I suppose you’ve noticed a change here?”

Robert had. Little changes. Only Mammy Chloe and George were left of the five servants. Only one car. Only one horse. Little things like that. And then, he suddenly remembered, the office had been closed in New York.

“Oh, I thought,” he was going to say that they were economizing, “I don’t know what I thought. I guess I didn’t think about it at all.”

“Well, the war has made some men, but it’s broken me. Not completely, but—” he waved his cigar. “There’s enough for us to live on the rest of our lives—that is the three of us—although on a slightly reduced scale. Oh, there’s nothing to worry about. Only, only, it isn’t what I had planned for you.” His voice broke and he pretended to relight his cigar.

They had often talked over their plans. Robert was to learn the more important aspects of the business, eventually succeed his father as president, leaving the details, however, to a competent staff. His income would enable him to live according to his own ideas of life—to ride, to hunt, to fish, to play tennis, to acquire the easy culture that comes with leisure, to surround himself with a society of men and women of similar tastes and to patronize, perhaps even essay, the arts. The older Hamilton had been able, in a measure, to live in accordance with these ideas.

Now perhaps they would have to take an apartment and cut down their expenditures. There would be an income ample for all necessities—even for the best apartment in Corinth, for a reasonable amount of entertaining.

“But can’t anything be done? Can’t I pitch in—?”

Mr. Hamilton laughed and looked at his son kindly.

“You’ve used that expression twice today, Bob,” he said. “It’s not like pitching hay or even pitching for a baseball team. I know you’re willing. But the smashup came while you were still in France—right after the armistice. It’s not as though anyone can help at this stage of the game, like a pinch hitter.”

Robert wondered how his father could take the matter so lightly. He suddenly gripped his father’s hand and stammered:

“It’s great how you can smile through everything like that. It’s—!”

Mr. Hamilton patted his shoulder.

“Wait until you’re my age, son. My loss is really nothing. There are things tremendously more important than money. Health, love, friendship. The ability to appreciate this cigar or to tell a good drink or a good book from a poor one. Money is valuable only in buying that appreciation. I’ve tried to give you that—to give you an education and a viewpoint. And we still have enough money left to buy a few good cigars and drinks and books.”

Mr. Hamilton sketched the decline of the Hamilton corporation. It had never been as important as Robert had thought—there had always been heavily mortgaged properties, for instance. During the war, most of the hardwood lands had been sold and the money used to expand the cotton mills. In the spring of 1918 it seemed certain that the war would last at least another year and so a huge plant had been erected near Charleston. Prices were high, the work lagged, the expense was enormous. In order to insure a sufficient supply of cotton and to guard against continued increases in price, Hamilton had bought heavily for future delivery. The armistice had come. The bottom had fallen out of the market. The demand for cotton goods had ceased. There was no foreign market. Well, it was hopeless. Out of the mess there would be left perhaps $200,000, anyway $100,000. He had disposed of most of his stock at a small figure. A set of Yankees and Jews were in control.

“Whatever you do,” said Mr. Hamilton, looking at Robert steadily, “whatever you do, don’t gamble on the exchange. Poker is all right, within your means. It’s a gentleman’s game. Dice has an honorable origin and at least you get a chance to hold the dice once in a while. But on the stock market or exchange you never hold the dice. You’ll remember, won’t you?

“Now, I suppose this may interfere with your plans about getting married. You are still young. I was thirty myself when I married mother. The world is still before you. There’s no hurry. Some day I know you will want to choose your road. If you care to take up a profession, there’s plenty to send you through. If you’re interested in business, I may still have some influence and, perhaps, a little cash, although all I have is tied up. As for myself, I’m too old to go into a new business now. I was nearly forty when you were born.”

“Of course I’ll want to do something now,” said Robert.

“You might talk it over with Pinkney. He’s a factor in Corinth today. He’s talked to me about you several times.”

“He seems to be interested in the Tribe mainly.”

“Yes, Robert, there are many influential Corinthians interested in the Tribe. It’s their hobby. I—I don’t know. I joined, of course. I think its objects are splendid, commendable, in fact. But after you’ve seen ten or twelve initiations the glamor wears off. Perhaps I shouldn’t talk to you like this. But you’re my son and you’ll understand. The ceremonial is not for us. It’s to impress others. And I’m a bit of a skeptic about any organization of human beings. Perhaps this may work the miracle. I hope it can. If you can prove useful in propagating its message, so much the better. Patriotism. Regard for laws. Chivalry. White supremacy. They’re all fine ideals.”

“Yes, they are, governor.”

“If you can prove valuable now to the Tribe, because of your personality or war experience or whatever it is, you will win the friendship of the most influential men in Corinth. This work will simply be a stepping stone. Pinkney’s a young man. He lacks certain qualities you have. He may not be all that you or I would seek in our ideal man, but he has brains enough to appreciate you. With the family name, the slight financial assistance I can give you and the good will of the best element of Corinth, the future is anything you care to make it. I don’t want you to be merely a successful man, but success is not to be despised and it may prove the open sesame to the life that we planned.”

“Yes, governor, I understand.”

They stood up. Robert had never quite understood his father before, it seemed. Smiling to the last. Well, he could be like that too.

XXVI

Robert found Pinkney, hat on head, about to leave the office.

“Come along,” he said, “you’re just in time. I’m going to the Tribe office. I’ll introduce you to the Sublime Headman—Joseph Andrew Lister.” Together they descended to the street.

“Lister? I heard the name at the concilium. Who is he otherwise? Is he a Corinthian?”

“Lister?—have a cigar, Robert. He’s the Rev. Mr. Lister, a very distinguished minister. Let me see. I think he was a Methodist divine. But he has given up his clerical work, he told me, to devote all his time to the Tribe. It was his idea, in fact. He began recruiting members in about 1915 or so and laid the foundation. The office is only a few blocks down.”

“I thought,” said Robert, “the initiation ceremony had a sort of ecclesiastical flavor. It was very impressive though. I dreamed about it all night.”

“Did you?” Pinkney grinned. “Lister and Griffith devised it. Lister is the man with the ideal of solidifying the best element in this country; while Griffith is the practical man. He really made it. He works out all the plans. He is really quite a capable fellow.”

They crossed the street, Pinkney, with his slightly annoying habit of politeness, or excessive friendliness, holding Hamilton’s arm and helping him. A persistent newsboy thrust a paper before him and Pinkney bought two copies.

“Want one? I have mine delivered at the office every day, but—”

Robert glanced at the streamer headline and discovered the meaning of what the newsboy had been shouting. A half-dozen masked men had taken a Negro from his place of employment in Corinth, driven him far into the country and tarred and feathered him. Members of the Trick Track Tribe were suspected. Howard’s cheeks were flushed and he moistened his lips with his tongue.

“Look at that,” said Robert, “they’re accusing the Tribe.”

“Oh, the police are friendly. The chief is one of us. There’s no danger. Whenever something like this happens, the Tribe is naturally blamed anyway. And if members of the Tribe did do it, no one would tell. There’s been altogether too much lawlessness among the niggers lately. The courts are cluttered with them. It should be a good lesson for them.”

“But isn’t this lawlessness?”

“The Tribe has its own law and metes out its own justice. You’ll see. You’ve taken only your first degree. You haven’t learned about the tribunal. It’s the fairest, justest institution in the United States. It fortifies the ordinary methods of law enforcement and insures justice to every one whose case is brought before it. If a man is condemned by it, be sure he is guilty.”

Robert noticed that Howard had not said that the Tribe had or had not been responsible for the affair. Yet he had vindicated it. There was a peculiar thing about the oath, too, or one of them: a person was permitted to deny a fact or even to falsify in defense of the Tribe. A phrase he had heard somewhere popped into his mind: “A good dose of tar taken externally with lots of feathers.”

Howard was detailing the offenses of the Negroes of Corinth. Of the entire black race. Of the colored races. What had they to do with this one individual human being who had been punished by these superior white men? Well, perhaps this man was guilty. The newspaper story hinted that the victim had distributed among his fellow Negroes white mule, a poisonous whiskey that incited the drinkers to violence—when it did not paralyze them, more or less permanently. After all, what was the law, but an institution to maintain justice? It was an instrument of man. It functioned through men. What difference was there fundamentally if men in long white gowns and masks sentenced you or a judge with a white wig and black robes or men in business suits! As long as the man was really guilty. And ordinary justice often lagged, allowed the criminal to escape, failed to impress its lesson on others.

“Oh, it was probably a good lesson at that,” said Robert.

“Probably!” exclaimed Pinkney. “Why there’s no doubt about it. It will do more to restore law and order, to stop the selling of white mule than raiding a dozen stills. I know the niggers. You know them too, Hamilton. They’ll become frightened and quit.”

The Rev. Mr. Lister was in his private office in conference with Mr. Griffith and another gentleman, according to the rather plump, middle-aged woman who sat typing in the outer room. Pinkney introduced Robert to her. Her name was Mrs. Ward. She had pleasant, a trifle flirtatious, brown eyes, assisted Mr. Griffith in editing the Tribe paper and various pamphlets, and chewed gum.

“Seen the last copy of the Clarion?” she asked, with a smile, turning to reach for something.

“No, what’s that?” asked Robert.

Mrs. Ward and Pinkney informed him simultaneously that it was a propaganda weekly, Mrs. Ward with a coquettish shake of her finger and a somewhat more pronounced appearance of her double chin.

“Captain Hamilton has just been initiated,” explained Pinkney apologetically. “Mrs. Ward, here, is the brains of the Tribe.”

She laughed.

“Here it is,” she said, handing the magazine to Robert. “Aren’t men the flatterers? There’s a corker in this week about the Catholics. You wanna read it. Didja see last week’s Jew article, Mr. Pinkney? Griffith wrote ’em. There’s some swell stuff about the Inquisition. I don’t see where he reads so much.”

Hamilton glanced over the first page of The Clarion. There was an engraving of de Torquemada with the caption, “Do You Want Him Here?” beneath. But before he could read beyond the first paragraph—a series of queries, as to whether we wanted this or that medieval institution here—he became conscious of voices raised in the office of the Sublime Headman. First an impassioned, angry voice. The words were indistinguishable. Then the angry voice of the minister. Robert recognized the cadences, rolling in anger:

“To violate your oath means disgrace, dishonor and death.”

A door flew open. The voices ceased abruptly. A white-faced man strode out of the room. He stopped in embarrassment as he saw Pinkney, twisted his hat, screwed his lips into a smile and mumbled a greeting, then stumbled out of the room. Robert’s hands involuntarily crushed the copy of The Clarion. A buzzer sounded.

“Come in, gentlemen,” called a sunny voice.

“Walk right in there,” beamed Mrs. Ward, adjusting a new sheet in her typewriter. “He’s in there alone with Griffith now.”

The Rev. Mr. Lister was seated at a mahogany desk—a tall impressive figure in frock coat, wing collar and black cravat—a dignified and picturesque survival of, say, the middle of the nineteenth century, with a wavy mane parted at one side and brushed back from a high forehead; thin lips of the orator; intent pale blue eyes.

Joseph Andrew Lister had been an itinerant Methodist preacher and later organizer for a fraternal society, before the inspiration came to him to revive a secret society for the reformation of humanity and the establishment of a more perfect justice on earth. He had been born on a farm in northern Georgia and had been obliged to rise at four o’clock every morning to begin the day’s chores. He hated farm life and, having at the age of seven, attended an Evangelistic meeting, presided over by a fiery preacher, decided to find solace in religion.

His parents, who were very religious, and an uncle, who ran a small store in a neighboring town, scraped together enough to send Joseph through a seminary, where he applied himself with such zeal that he led all his classes. He knew both testaments almost by heart and found in them the epitome of all wisdom. When not studying he was continually composing sermons and delivering them, under his breath in his room, or aloud in the fields or on the street. At sixteen he come home on Sunday to preach at the church where he had been confirmed and which his parents attended, to their inexpressible pride.

He might have continued to serve as a minister, assisting his parents with the less arduous duties of the farm between sermons, had he not been induced to join a fraternal society in his thirty-fifth year. He suddenly got an insight into a new world. The idea of fraternal association and benevolence in a lay organization fired his imagination and he saw in it a greater field for spreading practical Christianity. The position of organizer, besides, was somewhat more remunerative, and so, when it was offered him, he abandoned the pulpit. He was fairly successful in gaining new members, won a reputation as a fiery talker and was looked upon as a person of superior learning and godliness among his associates. These qualities alone would not have sufficed to build up the Trick Track Tribe had not the more practical genius of Griffith pointed the way. Lister remained, however, the figurehead and mouthpiece of the organization which he had been unable to build, while Griffith, the guiding genius, remained more or less in the background.

“Good morning, brother Pinkney,” said the Rev. Mr. Lister in orotund tones. “Isn’t this one of our initiates? Ah, yes, Captain Hamilton. I am delighted to enroll you in our Tribe. ‘I have an errand to thee, O captain.’” He smiled. “The Tribe is a military organization, a mighty host. And we need captains to spread the word.”

The Headman shook hands warmly with both Hamilton and Pinkney. Griffith, who had been leaning back in a chair, arose and followed his example.

“Let us be seated.” Robert noticed how the Headman’s eyes glowed, how the corners of his lips turned down and how he habitually pressed the tips of his fingers together. A sincere man, a man fairly burning with religious zeal. “In recruiting this magnificent army that is to bear the message of the Trick Track Tribe to every portion of the continent, we are in need of captains, even as the Kings of Israel needed captains of their hundreds.”

He complimented Robert magnificently on fighting the hosts of the enemy and now girding up his loins again to renew the fight for godliness here.

Robert, he judged, did not know all about the Tribe, but he must take some of its mission on faith. No doubt he knew its main objects. White supremacy. Noah had begot Shem, Ham and Japheth. God had created men, black and white—the white to be supreme, the black to be ruled. The purity of womanhood. Men and women who feared God and who kept His commandments. Patriotism. Something about money changers in the Temple.

Griffith, whose quick eye had been traveling back and forth between the minister and Robert, leaned forward and pointed his finger at the desk.

“It’s this way, Hamilton,” he said. “Pinkney has probably told you and I’ve said something about it—we’re planning our big drive, to expand simultaneously all over the country. We need men of standing to organize branches. We want to hit the big places in the North. Chicago and St. Louis are important centers now, because a lot of niggers have been imported there during the war. Chicago seems to be the logical center for the Middle West. We’ve had a man there for a few weeks looking over the field, and we’d like—that is, we would be delighted to have you accept a position as a Grand Bogey—that’s a district manager. You’d work out of Chicago. There’s an office there now under a different name—the Dearborn Statistical Bureau.”

Pinkney rose.

“Well, I simply wanted to bring Captain Hamilton here. I don’t suppose you need me any more.” They didn’t, thanked him profusely, and he left. The Headman listened to Griffith for a while and then turned to another desk, where he worked over some papers.

Robert was to employ lesser Bogeys or sales managers under him—division Bogeys for states, regimental for cities.

“Now,” Griffith coughed and looked uneasy. “As for the matter of compensation. We realize that no matter how inspired a person’s motives may be, he can’t do his best work without remuneration. So I’ve devised a plan whereby our sales managers, that is our Bogeys, are able to carry on their splendid work and at the same time make a good thing of it.”

Mr. Lister looked up from his work, pursed his lips together and nodded importantly.

“The laborer is worthy of his reward,” he said.

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” agreed Griffith.

The reward was to be fifty cents for each new member. The initiation fee was $10.00. Of this the Bogey who actually sold the membership, or rather, gained the recruit, kept $4.00, the division Bogey kept $1.00 and the Grand Bogey fifty cents. Of course, the Grand Bogey would have twenty or thirty lesser Bogeys working under him, and although the recompense on each sale, or rather new membership—Griffith would drift back into the terminology of salesmanship—would be less, his total profits would be greater. Thus out of the $10.00, more than half, or $5.50, would go to the various Bogeys, and $4.50 was to be forwarded to the Commander Bogey, who was Griffith. If Robert actually sold the memberships himself, he would keep the other Bogey’s share. Then there was the mask, which was sold for $6.50, and the horse robe, $14.00; water for the initiation ceremony, at $10.00 a quart, and so forth, all of which brought their share of profit.

Robert wondered whether Pinkney was familiar with all these financial details of the organization, whether his father knew about it, whether the other citizens of Corinth who had discussed it so glowingly as a sort of new church sprung up. Well, one had to be practical. The main thing was to get a number of Americans united in a common purpose, and it took money to do these things. The contractors who had undertaken the undoubtedly patriotic work of building the army cantonments during the war had made profits. There was no use being a sentimentalist. Even the directors of charity drives received compensation for their work—often handsome compensation—and who could deny that raising money for charity was a good thing. True, if the Hamilton Corporation had not failed, Robert would not have accepted the position as Grand Bogey, except, perhaps, without compensation. But now he must be practical. He had been in Chicago only once before in his life, as a boy, and it would be interesting to see it again. It had changed a great deal. And then, too, he would have a chance to see McCall and Levin. Dorothy, too!

“I suppose you’ll join the American Legion,” said Griffith.

“Yes. We’re just forming a post here, but I suppose I might as well join in Chicago now.”

“Fine,” said Griffith. “This is a military organization, you see. We want to get that element into it. How soon can you leave?”

Robert considered.

“Almost any time. There is nothing really to hinder me at all. In a week, say, if you want me to.”

“The sooner the better. I’ll have Mrs. Ward fix you up with a supply of propaganda materials. I see you’ve got a copy of The Clarion. Of course, you understand, The Clarion’s published by The Clarion Publishing Company. But it’s all good stuff. Read the article about the Catholics.”

“Is that true about the Knights of Columbus trying to control politics in this country?”

Griffith laughed.

“Read some of the stuff we’ve prepared. There’s a pamphlet by Prof. Lorner that’s a knockout, positively a knockout. And you want to read the K. C. oath.”

Griffith and the Rev. Mr. Lister shook hands with him. Mrs. Ward was directed to get a complete Grand Bogey’s layout ready and a few pieces of literature were thrust into his hand.

“We’ll run you through the other degrees so you can qualify for a Grand Bogey,” said Griffith. “We’re getting another young captain—good family, good mixer—for New York. Keep your eyes peeled for recruits. Drop in again tomorrow at this time. And read this literature. It’s good ammunition.”

XXVII

It was the last week in June and hot. No rain for a fortnight, a blistering sun and the clay roads leading to Corinth were baked to a bricklike hardness. Black gardeners perspired to keep their lawns green, the leaves of trees looked dry and yellowish, the wealthy began moving north. Robert longed for Chicago and Lake Michigan. Out of deference to Margaret and his parents he had postponed his departure until after the Fourth. There had been farewell luncheons and parties in his honor. He had spoken before the local Rotary club. And, crowning glory, he was now to make one of the Fourth of July addresses at Peachtree Park! Griffith, at first eager to have Robert off, saw the advantage to the Tribal cause in having their new Grand Bogey appear in public, and heartily approved.

When Griffith called to inform Robert that 500 Tribesmen were to parade through the little village of Carthage that afternoon, Robert begged off. His real reason was, first, because it was hot and, second, because he had paraded enough in the army. It was all right for Pinkney and Griffith to trot around in sepulchral robes and masks, but after a man has marched some thousands of miles more or less in military formations and taken part in a hundred regimental parades, guard mounts and what not, the novelty wears off.

“I’m working on my speech,” Robert offered a gray lie. It was partly true.

“Oh, fine, fine!” You could see Griffith nodding, through the phone. “That’s all right. Make it a good one! It’s more important.” He explained the object of the parade. It was simply to impress with the power of the Tribe the half hundred Negroes who lived in the village and of whom some white folk had made complaint. What had they done? They were acting up. A few had been drinking. One had been caught stealing. Some of the young bucks appeared to be loafing, hanging around the streets without having anything to do. Oh, yes, they had been punished, and without any waste of time, by the judge. But it was feared that if they got too gay, something more serious might happen. The mulattoes especially were feared. They were naturally bad. This would simply be a reminder, a salutary warning. An ounce of prevention, you know.

Then, shortly before six, Margaret had called up, all excitement.

“Have you heard about the parade at Carthage?”

“Yes, why?”

“Why didn’t you go? It was wonderful! So solemn and majestic, like a troop of knights going forth in the defense of womanhood.”

No, indeed! She had not gone. She had heard about it from Pinkney. Pinkney, in fact, had wondered why Robert wasn’t taking more active interest in the Tribal matters. Robert was nettled.

“I’ve been working on my speech.”

“Oh.” Then some details of how frightened the Negroes had been, and “Marjorie and Betty are coming over tonight. Would you care to—? No, well then, I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night!”

Robert spent the evening reading patriotic addresses, making notes of the more striking passages, wondering about Margaret and drinking ice water. His parents’ voices drifted pleasantly up to him from the porch through the open windows.

He yawned and looked out. He was becoming restless. Through the heavily scented trees the moon glimmered and a faint breeze stirred. He remembered that he had not sent the poem to Dorothy as he had intended and decided to take it with him. The vines in front of the window swished softly.

He shut his book, turned off the light and went downstairs.

“I’m going out for a little ride,” he said. “I’ll be back early. But don’t sit up for me.”

“All right, son.”

Driving along the country roads, at any rate, would be cooler than sitting up there. Phrases from the speeches he had read ran through his mind. It was good to see the long road, silver in the moonlight, unwind before him. The wind soothed him, coolly. He stepped on the accelerator and reveled in the sensation of flying through the night. The yellow lights of Carthage twinkled ahead and he slowed up. He bumped across a plank bridge. Then a mill, a church, some dreary shops. Shanties. The sinister jail. What were so many people doing in the street? Their voices were buzzing. Shouting. He slowed down.

“Hey, they all goin’,” someone yelled. A tall, lanky form leaned excitedly over the side of the car. His voice twanged. It was an old face, wrinkled, and his goatee went up and down.

“Who’s gone?” Robert stopped his car.

“They all. They bin skeered stiff, a’ter them Tribesmen p’raded through town this a’ternoon. Every blessed last one of them damned niggers packed up thayr belongings and skip’d. Wall, good riddance of ’em!”

Other villagers came up excitedly.

“The only wan who misses ’em is the real estater who rented ’em thayr shanties,” someone laughed shrilly.

“They all packed up an’ git.”

“Hurry up, mister, and you all kin see ’em. They’re just adown the road a piece. Reckon they’ll be goin’ to Colby and they’re sneakin’ in a’ night so the whites don’ see ’em.” The crowd laughed.

Robert sounded his siren, the crowd gave way, talking and laughing, and he pushed slowly through the straggling main street into the country again. A mile away, at the top of a crest, he came upon the last of the column—a fleshy, gray-haired mammy with a basket full of household utensils on her head. One arm was raised to support it, while the other held a cane with which she felt her way. Beside her another old woman waddled, an infant in her arms and a pickaninny of perhaps three trailing at her ragged skirt.

They were taking the cross-road and now the whole ragged, pathetic procession could be seen at the top of the crest, from the tall, broad-shouldered bucks guarding the mule carts in the front to the two old women in the rear. The moon, round and bright, fell on their exodus and painted them into a column of shadows, with bowed heads, moving slowly onward. The fence rails of a field were down. Robert dimmed his lights, parked his car beside the road, jumped out and cut across the field to a clump of bushes. The mules thudded slowly, switching their flanks, along the clay. Harness slapped from side to side, wagon wheels creaked. In the wagons were stoves, beds, the heavier articles of furniture and the sick. Everyone carried something—enormous bundles, worn suitcases. A tattered youth in overalls and undershirt, staggered beneath a soldier’s haversack and roll, piled high and strapped to his shoulders, and pulled a toy express wagon filled with rattling kitchenware.

Stolid men with brown faces and fear in their eyes. Weeping women. A ragged preacher moaning at the top of his voice and invoking “De Lor’ Jehovah.” Sorrowful, musical voices responding. Children crying. A woman moaning. A pregnant woman, with set mouth, pulling a mulatto child by the hand. A child with high nose and thin lips, but bearing the brand of Canaan—woolly hair and dark skin. There they marched, black, brown, yellow—negroes and mulattoes—their entire wealth wrapped in these rude bundles.

The mulatto child. It haunted him. Soft, wondering eyes in the moonlight, looking up at its mother. An idea, a grotesque idea, came to Robert. What mob had howled about the faggot pile of the father of this half-breed child? What white-robed knights had paraded before his door in warning? No! He had been white. And, a horrible thought, perhaps some white father, sometime, somewhere, unknowingly, of course, had paraded in warning before the home of his half-breed son or, it was conceivable, had kindled the flames about his brown limbs! Moonlight and the shadows moving on.

A tall, straight-shouldered negro leaned forward against a push cart, overflowing with bedding and on top of which rode a gray-haired, sobbing woman. He was comforting her, crooning to her as one might to a terrified child. His eyes turned toward the row of bushes and a memory burned in Robert’s brain. Who was it? Where had he seen him? Was it? Was it the black who had saved his life? The pale light fell full on his features—the high cheek bones, the slightly thickened lips. No, thank God! No, it was not Williams. No, it was not Williams!

Robert turned, ran back across the field and jumped into his car without looking around. What if it had been Williams? Why couldn’t it have been? He sped through the village. The crowd had dispersed into smaller groups that gossiped in doorways and porches.

The east room was lit when Robert drove the car into the garage. Laughing voices drifted out to him. He stole up the back way into his room. He wanted to be alone. The moon sent moving black masses interlaced with silver upon the walls. Robert hurriedly switched on the lights. As the door closed, a paper on the table rose and fell. His notes for the Fourth of July oration. Land of freedom. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson. Independence of tyranny.—It must be hell to be a nigger.

It was too gruesome to tell about at the breakfast table the next morning, but in the afternoon Robert described the flight of the Negroes of Carthage. They were walking about in the garden.

“My God, dad, if I had ever known what was coming, I’d never have joined the Tribe!”

“Well, son, the Tribe wasn’t really responsible. They simply wanted to warn the Negroes to be careful, to be law-abiding. They thought that they would be impressed, but I’m sure that even Griffith didn’t imagine anything like that.”

“But, God, it was horrible, weird, like something out of the dark ages. Even a slave-owner wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“No, certainly not, no decent man would. But, Bob, they didn’t mean it. They wanted to prevent something worse. There have been too many lynchings in Corinth lately and we want to prevent that.”

Robert’s face was flushed.

“Dad, I don’t know. This is simply one example, just one example of what the Tribe means. We have our tribunal. We decide a man’s guilt. But we’re all in masks. We’re—we’re a tribe. Not a law court. We may try to be, but we’re dealing with justice like savages. Our courts may be slow, imperfect; but anyway, they keep us from being a mob like that, or a tribe. Think of the hundreds of years during which human wisdom has built up our laws and our court procedure.” He was conscious of footsteps coming up the walk. “Why do we need any other tribunal than our own courts? Why do we need a Tribe to try men? It’s natural that the Tribal concilium should be swayed by prejudices and fears and hatreds. In the courts, justice is regulated by laws, by precedent, by the wisdom of ages. In the Tribe, it is the moment’s sentiment—right or wrong—sympathy or hate or revenge. Tribesmen may think they’re impartial, but they’re men, acting with only their own wisdom, often acting unwisely, sometimes cruelly. I—I think that I’ll resign from the Tribe!”

His father cleared his throat and held up his hand. Robert looked around. It was Margaret, dark eyes ablaze, cheeks flushed, hands clenched.

“So you will resign from the Tribe?” She tossed back her head. Her voice was clear, impassioned. “You will turn against the only force that can preserve the white South and white America from the alien? I thought you were a soldier. Don’t you see where your duty lies?”

“But Margaret, I’m not opposing—”

“You are,” she cried. “If you are not with the Tribe in its crusade, you are against it. It was the same way in the war. You were either a one hundred per cent American or you weren’t an American. And now you are either for one hundred per cent Christian, white civilization or against it.”

“Why—where—?”

She went on: “The Trick Track Tribe is only a test. It shows how you stand. Don’t ask me how I know. Someone—yes, Howard—said the Tribe is going to show exactly where every man in the South stands. Every man who isn’t a member by the time the drive is over, isn’t a member for some good reason—and it isn’t a reason to be proud of.” Her voice choked. She raised her hands and began fumbling at the engagement ring, then suddenly let them fall again, her fists still clenched. Her nostrils quivered. Robert could hear her breathing.

“I—I don’t want my husband to belong to the class that isn’t—isn’t—” Her voice broke. She turned suddenly and hurried up the walk into the house.

“Why—why?” Robert stared after her. What had he said? What had he done? Was resigning from the Tribe some form of treason or heresy—or infidelity?

The older man laughed.

“She’s got a temper, regular daughter of Dixie!”

“But did I say anything to make her flare up like that? Can’t a man quit an organization if he wants to?”

“I guess not. Not if you want Margaret.”

“But what has that got to do with me—with us? It’s—it’s unreasonable!”

“Oh, well, when you have as many gray hairs as I have, you’ll learn that the most reasonable thing to expect of a woman is unreasonableness. Suit your own conscience. But—” he put his arm on his son’s shoulder, “but don’t take it so hard. Just think it over.”

XXVIII

Robert was on his way to Chicago, with his credentials as Grand Bogey of the Trick Track Tribe secure in his breast pocket. In a large, black leather bag were his propaganda supplies, booklets and cards about the black peril, the yellow peril, the political activities of the Knights of Columbus, the Jewish problem, the menace of foreign immigration. He had scarcely time to look at them. Most of his supplies had, of course, been sent by express directly to the office of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau.

Before leaving Corinth, Griffith and Lister had both given him a new conception of the scope of the Trick Track Tribe. Its sphere had been called the Fourth Dimension, because like the fourth dimension it was to be invisible to outsiders, yet it was to form a part of the entire political, economic and social fabric of the country. It was to support good government against bad, combat radicalism and immorality, uphold the best traditions of Anglo-Saxon civilization. The Bogeys were to go forth like knights of old, except that they were to work unseen, in the Fourth Dimension, fighting for God and their country.

Robert had been provided with a number of cards to distribute among his prospects—cards resembling those which he had received, with the motto Non Silba Sed Anthra on them. Griffith had suggested that he begin proselytising on the train, and accordingly Robert studied his fellow passengers.

“Get the young fellows,” Griffith had advised. “As many of the ex-service men as you can and of fellows who weren’t drafted, but who would like to get in with men who were in the army. In the cities, of course, you’ll have to work systematically. First, get a few of the big guns: a big minister, a public official, a prominent business man. Then you can use their names in getting the rest. But on the train I’d try the young fellows.”

In the smoking car Robert tried to manipulate the conversation so as to sound the feelings of the men with whom he conversed. Everyone, of course, approved of such a generalization as Americanism, although each had his own solution of his idea of what that problem constituted.

“What we need is to get down to work and do less shouting,” was one choleric old gentleman’s rather vague recipe.

A drummer from Chicago—big cigar, diamond stickpin, dominant joviality and a talent for smutty stories—denounced the Bolsheviki—but his nose was Semitic and his name was something with a “son” on the end of it.

The thin, blond man with horn-rimmed spectacles—an advertising copywriter on his way back to Chicago from a vacation—said business was unusually good, it was simply a problem of going after it. None of them, in fact, had felt that the integrity of the American nation was being subverted. They were hopelessly optimistic.

When he referred to the Negro question, two men who were from the South began to take interest. One was an old gentleman—he seemed at least seventy-five—the other, a young man, perhaps Robert’s junior by three years, on his first trip north—to Louisville.

“That’s a real problem,” said the young man, taking part in the conversation for the first time that evening. “Some times I think they should all be shipped over to Africa—the whole bunch of ’em. Send ’em to Liberia. Africa’s the place for ’em all.”

He related an incident of how a Negro had stolen a hen from an uncle’s roost. A policeman, with a sense of humor, saw the darkey waddling down the street, suspiciously fat.

“Good-evening, Rastus,” said the policeman. “Nice evening.” It was the first time in his life that a policeman had ever said “good evening” to him, or, in fact, any white man.

“Yes, sah, pow’ful fine evenin’,” said the nigger uneasily, trying to conceal the hen, make a getaway and be polite to the guardian of the law at the same time.

“You’re looking fine,” said the policeman, playfully prodding him. “Wife’s cooking must agree with you.”

“Yes, pow’ful fine cooking. I gain thuty pound in one week. But I must be going home. I heah de poke chops frying on de pan and a-calling me. Good-night.”

At this moment the hen began to cackle.

“What’s that?” cried the patrolman.

“Tuck-tuck-a-wack!!”

“I’se just imitatin’ a chicken clackin’. (Tuck-tuck, tuck, tuck awah’)—hear dat? Folks says I’se de bes’ natural bo’n animal imetator in de—(Tuck, tuck, a wack.) Some folks say it’s a gift to imetate an animal so natural. Folks say I imetate better than the animal itself.—(Tuck, tuck a wack.)”

“I think if you unbuttoned your coat you could give a much better imitation.”

“No, sah! I must have it tight around my abdomen to get de true, natural soun’. (Tuck, a, luck.)”

The darky’s coat was agitated by the struggling hen, a button popped off and the bird suddenly thrust its head into view. Rastus slowly scratched his head.

“Now whare do you t’ink dat come from? I thought I was givin’ an onusually fine impersonation.”

Everyone laughed.

“They’re awfully funny, those coons,” said the young man. “You-all ought to see them jigging in the moonlight, playing on their banjos and dancing, all impromptu. It beats any minstrel show you-all ever saw. And they have beautiful voices. But they will lie and steal.”

He became serious.

“Of course, every race has its good sides, but the nigger has got to go, or else there won’t be any white America. In the meantime, he’s got to be kept in his place. He’s got to learn to respect the white man. Why, I read just the other day where they’re four million mulattoes in this country.”

“Well,” remarked the advertising man, dryly, “you know where they come from.”

He winked at the other Northerners, with a slight feeling of belonging to a superior group.

“What d’ye mean?”

“Well, the mulattoes come from either black mothers or white mothers. Therefore—”

The young Southerner grew very red.

“Sir, do you mean to insinuate that any white woman of the South—”

“Certainly not. I must say that I found the standards of morality in the South higher even than in Chicago or in the little Northern village where I was born. No, sir, the mulattoes are born in the South of black mothers. They are born among the purest, highest type of Anglo-Saxon manhood, upholding its traditions of race, religion and womanhood. I haven’t the least idea who their fathers are.”

The young man’s eyes blazed. Hamilton felt himself growing angry, but before he could say anything, the young man had half risen and was striking his palm excitedly with his fist.

“Sir,” he was crying, “you’ve made an insinuation against an entire class.”

He sputtered, he became unintelligible. He was going to make the other man eat his words. He denied that any respectable Southerner had ever begotten a mulatto child. Poor whites, perhaps. White trash! A white gentleman would never touch a colored woman.

“Well,” said the advertising man, with the least bit of a twinkle, “I hadn’t the least idea that I was insulting you. But what is your idea of the phenomenon?”

The youth glowered. The choleric old gentleman thrust in his oar.

“Why! Why! I observed that it was quite common for young gentlemen to ‘touch’ black women. In fact, I got the idea that it was one of your Southern traditions. Why, look here, young man, I’ve talked to twenty overseers if I’ve talked to one, and they all told me the same thing. They certainly extended true Southern hospitality to me.” He went into details. “Why, damn it, they admitted doing it themselves, not with any feeling of making a confession, either. One overseer said he always went to another plantation so as not to spoil the morale of his help!

“Now, I don’t give a whoop what you do. Black, brown, red. It’s none of my business. But what I do hate is this damn hypocrisy, all this bunk about your splendid manhood and high morality. Doggone it, I’ll bet you can’t show me a single white man south of the Mason-Dixon line—”

The young man flung his cigarette on the floor and walked out of the smoking car, muttering that if the Northerner weren’t old enough to be his grandfather he’d mop the car up with him.

Hamilton rose. “Here’s one, right here!” he said, looking the choleric gentleman in the eye.

“An exception, all right. But without getting mad about it and without putting on a high and mighty pose, tell me truthfully, aren’t you an exception? Take your own set!”

Hamilton wavered. The standards in Corinth had not been very high. Perhaps the set he knew was not a fair group. In general, it had not been considered particularly immoral. It had been the attitude of Greek or Roman gentlemen to their slaves.

“Well,” he said, “perhaps the white man is to blame. To be frank, I guess we are. Yes, it is a serious situation, and that’s exactly what we must combat.” He wished that the Jewish drummer were out of the car. It was a fine opening to talk Tribe. He could tell what the Tribe was going to do to raise moral standards and prevent the mingling of white blood with black by rigid enforcement of the code. Why were Jews excluded from membership, anyway?

The old Southerner coughed.

“I haven’t taken any part in your little argument, yet,” he said, stroking his long white beard, “for I reckon that’s something for younger and fightinger folks. But they say: Young men for fightin’ and old men for counsel. I sort o’ figgered that you fellows was sort of teasing this youngster that got mad.”

“Sure, that’s all I was doing, dad, having a little fun with him,” said the ad man. “Have a cigar?”

“No, thanks. Had enough. Too much tobacco bad for my heart. I sort-a liked the spunk o’ that young fella at that. Although nobody would a got mad at a thing like that in my day. But he’s right and you, too, young man. The nigger problem is a coming one. It’s been under cover for many years, but it’ll bob up again, sure as you’re born. Now, you might not know it, but I fit with the boys in gray; ’listed in ’65. I was a youngster, but I got in. I got a wound in my right thigh by a Yank musketball, I can show you, in the last engagement of the war—but I’ve no feelings against the North for that. Not any more. No, the South has forgotten the war. We’re all one country now.”

He went into a circumlocutory account of his experiences in the Civil War, of his home-coming and of the first post bellum days, while the rest listened respectfully and asked questions from time to time to show that they were still interested.

“You’re wondering where all this is leading to, well, you were talking about the nigger problem. But I saw a real nigger problem, compared to which this one isn’t a hill o’ beans. No, sir, not a hill o’ beans. Although this one may get to be like it. But we had a real problem.”

It was after the war. The Southern States had been compelled reluctantly, not merely to liberate, but to enfranchise the Negroes. Yankee carpetbaggers had descended from the North, both to invest money in enterprises and real estate that could be bought for a song and to obtain political control.

“Well, I lived in Tennessee, little town of Pulaski. When we got back, a few of us young bucks got together one May day in 1866, and formed a secret society, just for the dickens of it. I don’t know if you ever heard of it—”

“You don’t mean them Ku Kluxers?” broke in the Jewish drummer.

“That’s right!” exclaimed the old gentleman joyously. “How did you know? Knights of the Ku Klux Klan we called ourselves. Kuklux was a Latin word, meaning circle, and one of the boys who’d been to college thought it’d be appropriate.”

“Oh, ‘kuklos’! That’s Greek for circle,” said Hamilton.

“Oh, everyone has heard of the Ku Klux Klan,” put in the advertising man. “We even read about it in our histories, dad.”

“Well, that’s the same Klan, and I was one of the first members. Well, our first object was just to have a little fun, a little mystery to keep the other folks guessing. Then, by accident, someone discovered that if you wanted to scare a nigger into doing what you wanted him to do, all you had to do was to dress up in a sheet like a ghost.

“We scared a few bad niggers. You should have seen our rigs. White masks, high cardboard hats, long white robes. And we had a white cover for our horses and padded their feet. The best fun, of course, was the initiations. But that’s all secret.” He chuckled at the memory.

“Soon other Klans were started around Pulaski. By an’ by Tennessee, and then the entire South was covered with them. So by the time the reconstruction acts o’ ’67 were passed, we had a right smart of a military organization. Why, sir, the niggers, the old slaves, were in the state militia and we had to walk between rows of their bayonets to get at the voting polls. They and the Northern carpetbaggers stuffed the ballot boxes and won over the state and city government. And there were a few scalawags from the South that joined ’em. We had organized just for fun. But as soon as the niggers and carpetbaggers began making our laws and robbin’ the public treasury, the Klan spread like wildfire over the entire South. And like organizations were also formed. Knights of the White Camellia was one, Pale Faces, White Leaguers.”

“Trick Track Tribe,” suggested Hamilton.

“Yes, that was one of ’em. But they all had one purpose—to uphold the supremacy of the white race.”

“Well, you made a good job of it,” said someone. The old gentleman was getting winded.

“Yes, we did. Tar and feathers. Public hangings. A few judicious notes o’ warnin’. We put the fear o’ God and respect for law and order in their souls. It might not of been strictly ethical, but it worked in its day, and if ever the niggers start kickin’ up a rumpus, the same thing can be used against ’em again.”

The Jewish drummer took out another cigar and cut off the end with a little gold cigar-cutter attached to a chain and Robert knew that he would have to bide his time. The old gentleman’s words had given him moral confirmation. Not that he needed it, exactly, but it established the Tribe as of honorable tradition, an institution of which any Southerner could be proud. He wished that the Jewish drummer would go, or at least that he would get a chance to talk to the old Klansman alone. When the latter, therefore, excused himself to return to his seat because the smoke was getting too thick for his lungs, Robert followed him.

“I was interested in what you said about the Trick Track Tribe,” he said, falling into the seat opposite him.

“That’s because you’re a Southerner. Every loyal Southerner is.”

“Perhaps you’ll be glad to know that we—that the Tribe is being revived.”

“Revived? Well, well, well. But you know it was run out of business by the law, the whole shooting match of ’em—Klan, Tribe and all, by Congress.”

“No, I didn’t know that. Let’s see! There was something like that in our American history. Let’s see, the Force bill.”

“Sure thing. The damn Yankee general, Grant, done it. So I wouldn’t say much about it. I suppose it’s still illegal.”

“Oh, no, this has been reorganized and incorporated, although it’s got the same name and the same traditions. Here, let me show you some of our cards.”

The old Confederate soldier puzzled over the Latin motto and demanded why all those questions were being asked.

“We didn’t ask all them questions about religion and where a man was born. An’ what’s this card?”

It was a card the size of a playing card, headed “Do You Know?” and containing a list of “that’s”:

That the Pope is a political autocrat.

That a secret treaty made by him started the war.

That he is enthroned and crowned and makes treaties and sends and receives ambassadors.

That 116 princes of his government are enthroned in our cities.

That he has courts here enforcing the canon law.

That he controls the daily and magazine press.

That he denounces popular government as inherently vicious.

That his canon law condemns public schools and forbids children to attend them.

That popery enthroned in great cities controls politics.

That our war industries were placed exclusively in Roman Catholic hands.

That no sectarian body or fraternal order but Knights of Columbus were permitted to do war relief work in the army and navy.

That Roman Catholics compose one-sixth of the population and hold three-fourths of the public offices, being entrenched in national, state and city governments throughout the country.

That they are pouring into our land as immigrants at the rate of two millions a year.

That Knights of Columbus declare they will make popery dominant in the United States.

Let us arouse the people and save our country as the beacon light of constitutional liberty and the hope of the world.

The old soldier scowled.

“D’you take me fer a fool, young feller? And what’s this other card there, some more anti-Catholic stuff, eh? What in the devil has this rigmarole got to do with the old Tribe or the Klan or with any of those other organizations? How d’you know I’m not a Catholic?”

“I thought because you belonged to the Ku Klux Klan you couldn’t be. I thought Jews and Catholics were barred.”

“Jews. Catholics barred.” His eyes blazed and he shook his fist. “Now where do you get that? I want you to know that some of the finest soldiers among the boys in gray was Irish Catholics. A lot of the officers, too. And don’t you know that a Jew, Judah P. Benjamin, was secretary of war of the Confederate States? And the Pope of Rome was the only power that recognized our president and government? You’re a fine Southerner! No, we didn’t discriminate because of religion. Didn’t you hear me tell you that we had just come back from the Civil War and that we all united to save the South from ignorant, licentious niggers and from crooked Yank carpetbaggers and our own Southern scalawags? There wasn’t any question of Catholics or Protestants or Jews in the old Tribe. There wasn’t any question of Catholic or Jew in the Ku Klux Klan. I’m not a Catholic, but if you’re a friend of the old Tribe or the old Ku Klux Klan don’t show me any more of that stuff.”

Robert put his cards back in embarrassment. The old gentleman kept mumbling “Catholic, Jews, Klan” under his breath.

“Oh, of course,” began Robert, “our chief purpose is to preserve the white race—”

“Preserve! You mean pickle it! Kill it and pickle it in embalming fluid! So you’re going to preserve it by splitting it up. In ’67 we tried to preserve it from the unruly blacks and the renegade whites. If you’d been there, young man, you’d of known how important it was to have the best of the white element united—instead of dividing it along religious lines.”

Robert attempted to point out the need of having a homogeneous organization of native-born, white Protestants to carry on these ideals, but the old man swore that “there had been Protestant, white-born native sons of Belial among the scalawags.”

“There’s no race or creed that’s got a monopoly on all the scoundrels. And I notice you slipped in a new one about native-born. That, sir, is an insult! I’m Scotch born! Came over as a boy of six—but that excludes me, too, me a member of the first Klan. Why, Jesus Christ himself couldn’t have gotten into your Tribe, according to the revised rules, because: First, he was a foreigner, and, second, because he was a Jew.”

Robert was becoming angry. If he wasn’t so old a man and so vehement, one could argue with him, but when Robert thought of something to say, he interrupted. He had been more than picturesquely profane. He had been positively sacrilegious. It would have been a feather in Robert’s hat to have obtained the membership of one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan—but he wasn’t eligible, anyway. He had never known the Scotch to be so vehement. He talked like an excited Irishman. Robert would not tolerate it any more. He got up and walked back to the smoking car.

XXIX

Robert went over his propaganda material. There was no time to read all of it carefully, but enough to give him a clearer idea of the Tribe’s purpose and to present, in more clear-cut fashion, arguments for joining it. Its objects had not appeared very plain. At the initiation, in Griffith’s office, in talking with Lister, there seemed to be a simple enough mission—Americanism, supremacy of the white race, the maintenance of law and order, the avoidance of unnecessary strikes, the protection of womanhood. Yes, undoubtedly all this was a glorious task. But when one came to analyze these general propositions their meaning became vaguer. It was like founding a society to uphold the Constitution. In 1787, before it was certain whether a nationalistic sentiment would crystallize, there might be some meaning in founding such a society. But no one would think of forming such an association now. And then Robert remembered that upholding the Constitution was part of the Tribe’s creed. It was like establishing an organization to uphold the foundation of our government. It was like forming a government—only a secret government—within a government.

Once, in his senior year at prep school, Robert had attempted to become a debater. He joined a debating society and was assigned to a team which was defending the merits of a certain plank in the platform of the Bull Moose party against a similar plank of the Democratic party platform. He had entered the preparation of the arguments full of enthusiasm. The Progressive platform was so much broader, so much more constructive. Then, on the night of the debate, his enthusiasm had suddenly vanished. He had forgotten his arguments, or rather they seemed petty. Each party was trying to solve the same problem. There was merely a slight difference in the phrasing. Each party had tried to word it as broadly as possible without committing itself too definitely. Robert had rattled off the words he had memorized, sat down in confusion for a moment and then walked out without waiting for the verdict, which was, of course, against him. That had ended his career as a debater. He had long forgotten what the plank was—the handling of the trust problem, relations between labor and capital, or what; but the sense of mortification, mingled with one of his superiority to persons who spent their time in trying to prove things, remained.

The Tribe, he knew, was definitely opposed to the entry of the Knights of Columbus in politics. Fair enough. He was happy to be in that fight. But some of the questions on the “Do You Know That” card seemed to be beside the mark. They aimed at Catholics en masse, just like the debaters at prep school had aimed questions and set traps for their opponents, not to clarify the issue, but to win. Granted that no religious organization ought to enter American politics, why denounce the Catholics because the Pope is enthroned and crowned, sends and receives ambassadors and has 116 “princes” (bishops and higher ecclesiastical officers presumably), in the United States? That was begging the question. That was accusing the Catholics of being Catholics, condemning them because of the organization of their church. There was no proof that the 116 papal princes had the remotest connection with American politics. The suggestion was conveyed, of course, by innuendo. Then there was a statement that the Knights of Columbus had been the only sectarian or fraternal body permitted to do war relief work in the army and navy. That was a plain mis-statement. Any soldier knew better than that. There were the Y. M. C. A. and Salvation Army. And didn’t the Jews and the Lutherans have some sort of organization? Yes, he was sure of it. If the Y. M. C. A. and the Salvation Army were not considered sectarian or fraternal organizations, then that was only getting back to a debating society quibble on words. Well, when he got to Chicago, he would talk it over with the man in charge of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau. Together they would work out a better, yes, a fairer, set of cards and circulars, some that actually pointed out the menace of the Knights of Columbus in politics.

So far Robert had been fairly successful. At least five of his fellow passengers had expressed a desire to join. He had their names and addresses and would have cards sent to them, one every week or so, so that it would not seem that they were being rushed. One of the converts had handed Robert a copy of a violently anti-Catholic publication with a chuckle.

“Want to read something good?”

It was an account of how a Catholic priest had been accused of intimate relations with a young girl who had come to confess to him. The man winked and gleefully expressed his indignation. His little dark eyes sparkled.

“They ought to all be wiped out root and stem,” he said vehemently. “They’re all alike, with their round faces and their fat stomachs. Every one. A bunch of hypocrites, under the rule of an Eye-talian pot-entate, taxing the people and living on the fat of the land. Why, it’s a well-known fact that every priest has a cellar full of wine and that they get drunk every night.”

He recited other “facts” and then appealed to history. He had just read in a previous issue of the same publication of the Spanish Inquisition.

“If they had the same power now they’d hold an inquisition right here,” he declared. “They’re an intolerant lot and if I had my way I’d make every one swear he wasn’t a Catholic and those who wouldn’t swear, I’d hang.”

The defender of tolerance gleefully read the card Hamilton handed him.

“Every word of that is true,” he repeated after every statement. “Yes, sir, every word. Yes, sir, we demand separation of church and state?”

For a moment the phrase “separation of church and state” struck Hamilton as an odd anachronism—it was as though he had demanded “no taxation without representation”—and then he remembered that that was one of the purposes of the Tribe as outlined on the card. States’ rights was another one of the planks with a musty flavor—it went back also to the Constitutional Convention, to gentlemen in knee breeches and wigs ardently debating how much of the power of the sovereign states was to be delegated to the Confederation itself.

But the tolerant gentleman who wished to hang all Catholics waxed enthusiastic over these demands and Hamilton encouraged him.

The other converts were clerks or secretaries, the most important of them the secretary of a commercial club of a suburb of Chicago—Parkins, a short, blond, plump man, with an engaging smile and a penchant for pep talks. He wore rimless eye-glasses suspended by a gold chain, which he frequently removed from his nose to breathe upon and wipe with a silk handkerchief. Parkins had his eye, a very pale one, on a bigger job, managing director of the Chamber of Commerce of one of the more important cities of the Mississippi Valley and systematically spoke before various civic and commercial organizations. He had both spoken and written for trade journals, house organs, etc., considerably more about the human will than Jonathan Edwards and William James combined. His lectures, called “The Will to Success” and “Selling Yourself Through Your Will” were called “classics.” They were universally accepted, emulated and followed.

Parkins went through a regular set of exercises in developing the will every morning as ordinary men—now and then, when it is not too late, or too cold or too warm—go through setting-up exercises.

“I will get up and shut the window,” he would say the first thing his eyes opened in the morning. Then Spartan-like he would hop out, take three deep breaths and close the window.

“I will take a cold shower,” he would say next. And soon to the breakfast table.

“I will eat only one three-minute egg and one slice of unbuttered toast.... I will catch the 8:16 express, although it is 8:12 now.... I will keep smiling no matter if I must wait for the next train. Not failure, but low aim is crime.... I will get through with my dictation by 10, write my speech by 11 and get through the committee meeting by 12.”

“It’s the little things that count,” said Parkins to Robert with a smile. “To succeed in the big undertakings of life, you must succeed in the smallest undertakings. I constantly exercise my will. ‘Shall’ is the weakest word in the English language. Always say ‘I Will,’ which is the strongest word. The second strongest word is ‘Boost.’ Will to Boost! Boost yourself! Boost your community! You know what Emerson said about the mouse trap. If you construct a better mouse trap or cause two blades of grass to wax where only one grew before, the world will beat a highway to your portal. The sublimest poem in the English language, second perhaps to the Psalm of Life and, of course, the poetry of the King James version of the Scriptures, is Invictus. It means Unconquerable and is unquestionably one of the greatest poems ever written by an American! It ends with the immortal lines:

‘Under the buffetings of Fate

My head is bloody, but unbound.’

Sublime! By the power of the will man is the captain of his soul!”

“Yes, it’s wonderful,” agreed Hamilton, seizing an entering wedge. “And don’t you think that just as the individual should be the captain of his soul, the superior element, the element of society that corresponds to the will, should be the captain of the nation’s soul?” He had hit out blindly at a figure of speech and it had come out surprisingly smooth.

“That’s exactly right! I must make a mental note of that thought. I will use it in my next address.”

Robert amplified on his original idea. The captain of the ship of state, the metaphor warped slightly, was the best element—the white, native-born Protestant. Parkins blew on his glasses and said the thought was wonderful, if not sublime. He added that we must steer away from the shoals of foreign immigration.

“Chicago will need all its ‘I will’ spirit to solve the problem that is now confronting it.” Robert wished that Parkins would leave out a verb now and then, and not speak in a succession of quotation marks and exclamation points. “During the war, I am sorry to say, thousands of Negroes came to Chicago to take their place beside the white man in the factory, mill and shop.”

Parkins viewed the coming of the Negroes to Chicago, East St. Louis and the other northern manufacturing cities as a phenomenon akin to, say, the descent of locusts. The fact that northern manufacturers made frantic efforts to bring colored men by sending their agents into the South and offering higher wages than they had ever received before; the fact that this labor had been sorely needed in the essential industries—to convert metal into guns and shells, textiles into uniforms, leather into army shoes, food animals into meat—he seemed to disregard. The Negroes had come, as though they were a tribe of invaders or a visitation from an angry god.

“We will dominate!” he said suddenly, pounding one plump palm with a plump fist. “We native-born, white Protestants, we will guide the ship of state. We will be captains of our national soul. Hamilton, we must say it! Listen to this: (He sang in a thumping, tuneless voice, under his breath so that the others should not hear him, to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic:)

‘We will to be Americans

In our land of Liberty.

We will to be-a loyal sons

Of the Bra-ave and the Free.’

That’s just the beginning of the song we sing every Tuesday after our noon luncheon. Don’t you think it brings out your idea strongly? After it we sing ‘K-K-K-Katy,’ to take away the psychological effect of singing such a serious song and to leave them in a better mood. There is a great deal of psychology about getting up a song-fest or an inspiration meeting that the layman probably never realizes.”

He endorsed the Tribal idea in toto and became enthusiastic over the phrase about doing away with unnecessary strikes. (Robert glossed over the state’s rights idea as unimportant anyway.)

“The alien and the Jew must be kept under control, too,” said Parkins. Hamilton knew that Jews were ineligible for membership, but had not read the pamphlet dealing with that phase of propaganda and was uncertain whether they were to be actually objects of attack, like the Negroes. In fact, it was not quite clear to him whether Jews and Catholics were to be lumped together with Negroes as undesirables or simply to be attacked whenever they attempted to control the government.

“In the little suburb where I chance to have found my place,” said Parkins, “the Jews are already invading business. They are bankers, merchants and professional men. They are crowding out the dominant Protestant element—the element that founded our little city and which still remains the bulwark of its morality. Not satisfied with getting a foothold into business there, as, I have no doubt, they are doing everywhere else in this country, the Jews are bringing their families into the most exclusive residential district and cheapening it. They are like the camel in the little story, which you have no doubt heard. It seems that an Arab in crossing the Sahara had pitched his tent one night near a beautiful and verdant oasis.”

He continued, with relatively few errors, the fable of the camel, who, having been allowed by the Arab to stick its head through the window of the tent, next entered through the front door, and then gradually ousted the sheik from his humble mat of rushes before the hearth.

“It was a mistake for our forefathers ever to open this land of the free to all the nations of Europe to use as a dumping ground for their worst elements and as a breeding place for un-Americanism and Radicalism. It is too bad that the American party, I believe that was the name of that splendid party that flourished in the middle of the last century, should ever have been allowed to perish; and, if I mistake not the pulse of the people, the revival of the Trick Track Tribe will, in effect, also resurrect Americanism.”

Robert remembered hazily reading of the American party. It had sometimes been referred to contemptuously by its enemies as the Know Nothing party, and the oddity of the name and the fact that it had been organized in Georgia had emphasized it sufficiently to make it stick among the other oddities of American political history in his brain. As they discussed the old Know Nothing party, little details of it came gradually back, and the resemblance between its platform, drawn up before the Civil War, and the present platform of the Trick Track Tribe struck him. One plank restricted all political offices to native Americans. Another would prevent persons swearing allegiance to any foreign potentate or power—by George, almost the same phrasing!—from office. A third would make it more difficult for aliens to become naturalized, extending the residence requirement to twenty-one years.

“The program of the Tribe is like the old American party,” said Hamilton. “Why, there’s even something about separation of church and state in it!”

“State’s rights” was another plank of the old Know Nothing party. But here was something peculiar—the old plank, allowing states to preserve institutions, had been drawn (Robert remembered it distinctly now, both from his American history class and from conversations at home), for the purpose of preserving slavery. Had Griffith and Lister simply lifted the old platform of the Know Nothing party? Parkins, of course, would probably not remember the pro-slavery sentiment behind the old states’ right plank. He was always misquoting phrases. He had a prodigious capacity for remembering things inaccurately. But, in general, Robert wondered, would it be wise to speak to other Northerners of the similarity of the Tribe’s program with the old Know Nothing party? In the South, he knew, it would be untactful, to say the least, to introduce a political party or secret organization as one that Abraham Lincoln had favored or that Jefferson Davis had repudiated. It wouldn’t stand a ghost of a show. But the old Know Nothing party, the object of which was practically the same as that of the Trick Track Tribe had been repudiated by Lincoln and, of course, by all abolitionists.

Parkins did not remember the pro-slavery flavor of the old American party.

“I believe the party actually elected a few representatives to Congress,” said Parkins, pursing his lips and coming as near as he could to scowling in an effort to remember. “Through the Tribe the American party might actually be revived. Yes, it could. If the American party had only triumphed fifty years ago we should not now have to face the problem raised by the hordes of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.”

Robert remembered that the party was active not fifty, but seventy years ago, and that at that time it was not southern and eastern European immigrants who were being opposed, but western Europeans. The aliens whom the Know Nothings referred to as the scum of Europe and would have disenfranchised were English, Germans and Irish.

“Er—a—yes,” agreed Robert. “It would have kept out the undesirables.”

Parkins promised to use “what little influence he had in spreading the doctrines of the Tribe” and they agreed to get together and work out a constructive program for “putting over” the Trick Track Tribe among the business men of greater Chicago.

The colored porter came through the Pullman, announcing the proximity of Chicago and began brushing off the passengers at the farther end of the car. It was almost noon. Robert looked out of the window. For a long time—hours it seemed—they had been running through rows of ugly factories and houses, rather grimy and bare, with only occasional patches of sooty grass to relieve the monotony. They passed under stiff steel bridges and along bare walls, beneath the level of the street. Then the ground very slowly met the tracks. The stretches of ground—vacant lots, factory sites, parks, were flat and gray. Dirty, yellow and orange street cars jerked along the level streets. Not a hill in sight. Interminable rows of stores, factories, habitations. Increasing soot. A glimpse of great buildings beyond. Then they passed under a huge dark shed. Robert wondered whether McCall would meet him. He had written Bill a week ago. He thought of Dorothy. He felt lonely, oppressed by the massiveness of the dingy station and of the city. Parkins was standing up. So were the other passengers. The train came to a stop and Robert, in line, slowly made his way to the door.

XXX

McCall was there, looking comfortably negligent in a light Norfolk suit and gray cap, a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. It was warm—springlike for a person coming from Corinth—but close and sticky. It was hard to breathe, because of the soot, and bits of it kept getting in his eye.

McCall recognized Robert and whooped for joy. He swore picturesque oaths and called Hamilton vile names, and Robert retorted in kind.

“Sacré bleu! Nom de cochin!” McCall rattled off. How was the tin rib? How was his state of health? How long was he staying? Where was he staying? He asked questions without waiting for answers and Robert answered them by asking others.

“Oh, the eye is all right,” said McCall. “Perfect! Only Doc says I must cut down on the number of eye openers. Levin couldn’t make the train because he’s away on a case, but he wants you to come over to his house Friday evening. You’re not married yet?”

“Nope,” said Robert. “Do I look—”

“Sure you look crazy. Let me take another look at you.” He held him away at arm’s length. “But not crazy enough.”

McCall offered to share his room, but Robert had already reserved one at a hotel by wire. They reached the hotel by taxi, after a short ride between tall, soot-stained buildings, on streets thick and noisy with traffic. At almost every corner the taxi was stopped by the cross flow of hurrying men and women and vehicles. Then the shrill blast of the traffic patrolman’s whistle and they poured forward again with the current. There were glimpses of a huge steel skeleton reaching to the sky and sounds of the riveters. At the end of what appeared to be an alley loomed a massive gray building—the post office. Elevated trains thundered overhead. Surface cars rattled and clanged on the streets. The sidewalks swarmed with hurrying people. It was a race—a contest to get somewhere first. You had to shout to be heard and then after shouting a few times you forgot what you had started to say. The taxi kept stopping suddenly and as suddenly shooting ahead.

“Well, what do you think of Chicago?” asked McCall, when they were in their room and the bell boy had been dismissed with a tip.

“Rotten!” said Hamilton. “I’ve got a cinder in my eye.”

“It’s a sign of progress,” said McCall. “Cinders. Smoke. Tall chimneys. Railroads. Skyscrapers. Noise. Confusion. A few murders for variety and lots of vice. I’ll show you the stockyards. Then you will think Clark street is like a bed of violets. What’s this thing? ‘Do You Know That?’—or I’ll take you to our black and tan belt some night.”

Robert realized that, in throwing his coat on the bed, one of the Trick Track Tribe cards had fallen out.

“Oh, never mind. It’s not important.”

But McCall had already picked it up and was reading it.

“Oh, here’s a lulu!” he exclaimed. “Here’s richness. Here’s charity. That’s one of the Trick Track Tribe’s little cardlets, if I mistake not. Where’d you get it? Let me have it, I’m working on an expose of the Tribe. It’s a nice mess. Say, you ought to be able to help me. The headquarters is in Corinth.”

Robert turned red and pretended to search for something in his coat pocket.

“Why—er—a—you know—” Robert coughed. “Well, you know the Tribe is a sort of secret organization.”

McCall cocked his head on one side and scowled impressively.

“Aha,” he said. “Sherlock Holmes comes all the way from Corinth to tell me that it’s a secret organization.”

“Well, a—”

McCall laughed.

“Don’t look so damn embarrassed. I suppose you don’t know any more about it than I do about the current city hall scandal. Just as you have the Tribe, we have our weekly public scandal. Political factions calling each other crooks, and all of ’em right. If a person kids me about our mayor, I laugh with him. And if I were from Corinth and somebody talked about the Trick Track Tribe I’d do the same thing. I suppose it’s only the lower element, the lawless whites responsible for your lynchings, that belongs.”

Robert made a vague noise in his throat, something halfway between a cough and a gurgle, which McCall interpreted as an affirmative reply.

“The Tribe has an office here, I’ve got the address. They’re just planning their campaign now. When it breaks, we’ll be ready to break, too. If you don’t mind, I’ll take this card to Father Callahan. I want him to answer these questions. Of course, you know and I know that they’re stupid lies, but I want the proof. I want to be able to nail the lies. I’d like to confront one of the head Tribesmen with the answers.”

“Do you belong to the Knights of Columbus?” asked Robert.

“No, but I know these charges are crazy. It’s simply a fraternal organization for Catholics.”

“Well, you can’t tell. Some of these statements are pretty positive. Maybe it is in politics. Gee, I’m black.”

Robert stripped off his collar and shirt and began washing. McCall’s protests against the accusations, various questions about Robert’s health and bits of information came gurgling through the soap and water. He talked about Levin. The operation had made him one of the most talked of physicians in Chicago and his profession. And he hadn’t charged a cent. Before he started he insisted that it be done gratis, but that in case he failed he should not be liable in any way. Levin was very busy. He was on the staff of one of the big hospitals and had hardly an evening to himself. He would run up if he had chance, but insisted that Robert come to his home for dinner Friday evening. Friday night was a sort of holiday among the Jews, something like Sunday among Christians, and it was considered especially praiseworthy to feed a guest on this night. Levin’s father still kept up the old custom.

“But won’t it be sort of—funny there?” asked Robert, wiping his face. McCall had taken a position on the bed. “Ah, the old bunk fatigue, I see.”

“Yes, the habit sticks. I usually lie down on the Press Club lounges at noon. It’s such a change from lying in your own bed.”

“Won’t the Levins have queer prayers and ceremonies?”

“Why, no. The old man is orthodox. That is, he isn’t really orthodox, but he still keeps Friday night. You may find him wearing a little skull cap and they may have a candelabra burning on the table—I go there once in a while.”

“Well,” Robert hesitated, “Levin’s all right, but what sort of people will I meet there? You know the Jew you usually meet—little fellows with long beards and hats pulled over their eyes, smelling of garlic and talking with their hands.”

He gave a ludicrous imitation.

“Jews you meet?” repeated McCall. “Where do you meet ’em like that? Maybe they did that fifty years ago. You probably saw Jews like that on the vaudeville stage.”

Robert considered and grinned.

“Well, maybe. It’s probably a little exaggerated, but they do wear beards and—”

“Some do and some don’t. My dad used to wear chin whiskers, but he didn’t look like the monkey-faced Irishmen on the stage with inverted clay pipes between their teeth. Doesn’t your father wear a beard? Oh, you’ll find a peddler or two still clinging to the whiskers.”

“Well, but most of ’em are rather loud. I know even in New York, at the cafés they seemed conspicuous.”

“By gravy, I’m going to suspect you of being a member of the Trick Track Tribe,” laughed McCall. He seized a pillow and amused himself by throwing it up and down. “Well, the first time I went to Levin’s, I also had a feeling that I’d meet only peddlers, pawnbrokers and clothing salesmen. But that idea is like the idea that a man visiting an Irishman’s house will find pigs in the parlor and meet only hod-carriers, politicians and policemen. You wouldn’t associate with a poor white, would you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then why should Levin associate with a peddler? I haven’t anything against a peddler especially, only I mean that Jews have social classes just as anybody else has. Jacob Schiff or Louis Brandeis wouldn’t associate with—”

“Oh, shut up!” laughed Robert, throwing a towel at him. “For Levin’s sake I’ll eat a pound of garlic. And, by the way, I’d like to have you show me the answers that Father Callahan gives to those questions; I’d just like to know.”

Robert had decided to write Griffith regarding certain phases of the Tribe’s campaign which were not clear to him, and if the Knights of Columbus were really not in politics, he would inquire about that phase of the campaign also.

“Have you started your big novel yet?” asked Robert.

McCall paused in the midst of a series of abdominal exercises, which consisted of alternately raising and lowering his legs.

“No,” he said. “What gave you that idea?”

“Why you said that—”

“That’s no reason at all. I simply want to write it. I probably never will. Every newspaper man is going to write a novel or a play. Once in a while somebody does. But he’s usually a rotten newspaper man. Sometimes a cub is lucky enough to get fired. That saves his literary career. If he weren’t fired he would degenerate into a good newspaper man or even an editor. Young Fitzgerald couldn’t hold a job, so he had plenty of time to write books. And didn’t Upton Sinclair try to get a job on a newspaper once? No, of course, you didn’t know. That was a rhetorical question. If you had been able to answer, I’d say it was just a plain, garden variety question.”

“Well, if you haven’t time enough to write, why don’t you resign?” inquired Robert. “Here, get your feet off my coat.”

“All right, it hasn’t spoiled the polish much. But the reason why I don’t resign is because if I did that, I would have to write a novel. I don’t like to be forced to an alternative voluntarily. This way I can simply say I haven’t the time.”

“Well, your words may mean something to you, but they mean very, very little to me.”

“As it should be,” said McCall. “Where are we going to eat? I’ll show you a good place—when I speak it is rather to express myself than to convey thought. Speech arose originally from the need to express certain unique conceptions, ideas or fancies. In fact, it was a disadvantage that anybody else understood one, because that destroyed the uniqueness of one’s idea. Just a minute. I wish to work out the thought. You don’t have to listen if you don’t wish to. If you have ever heard two persons arguing you have undoubtedly noted that neither ever convinces the other, that in fact they never listen to each other’s arguments. That supports my contention. Each person simply talks to express his own ideas, to get rid of them, to work them out of his system. The catharsis, or something, of Plato.”

“Now I notice how much I’ve missed you,” said Robert. “I’ve absolutely forgotten how to talk nonsense.”

“An art acquired only by arduous practice and by the few,” said McCall. “Any damn fool can talk sense.”

He rose leisurely, ran his fingers through his hair and threw his cap on his head. “I say, young fellow,” he suddenly remarked. “Didn’t you say you were going to do something as soon as you got back home, some little thing, some trifle, like getting married?”

Robert acknowledged it.

“Broken romance? Or just plain broke?” asked McCall.

“Just plain broke,” laughed Robert. “I’ll tell you about it at lunch.”

They ate at the Press Club, a few blocks away from the hotel, a comfortable place on the top of an office building, across the street from the City Hall.

“Once in a while you see a newspaper man here,” said McCall gravely. “Usually you find them sleeping on the couches. But most of these men are professional men—lawyers, prominent officials, bankers, and so forth. That old gentleman with the long hair is a poet. Does cowboy verse. That thin, gray-haired fellow is a literary critic. Runs a little magazine. What do you want? The ham and eggs are very good.”

McCall described some of the parties that had been held at the Press Club in the old days and particularly of the night they had entertained the Milwaukee Press Club. The visitors had been met at the “L” station by a reception committee in weird costumes and paraded to the club in brewery trucks, headed by a band. The program had been drawn up with a view to shocking, if possible, the visitors, and beer, whiskey and sandwiches had circulated freely. At the conclusion women from—well, it didn’t matter where they were from—had danced the dance of the seven veils, without the veils. Some of the trustees had been shocked and the program committee had been reprimanded and suspended.

“And now what were you going to tell me?”

Robert explained in a general way how the Hamilton interests had met with reverses, and allowed McCall to infer that he had come to Chicago on business connected with the corporation. It saved explanations.

“Now, of course, I know that Margaret doesn’t want me because of my money, but I haven’t had the courage to tell her. Of course, she ought to know. What would you do?”

“I’d tell her, Ham. I’d tell her openly. Of course, you’re sure you love her. That’s the main thing.”

“I’m going to marry her,” replied Robert. In his own mind the answer suddenly flared like a light. “I am going to marry her.” It was loyalty to her, loyalty to his promise, loyalty to an idea, and perhaps to an old love. Was it anything else? He suddenly remembered something.

“I’ve got something of yours,” he said, reaching into his breast pocket. “I was going to send it to you, but I kept forgetting or putting it off.” He pulled out an envelope, on the back of which was scribbled a sonnet. McCall took it and examined it in surprise.

“Why, that’s your envelope. Your name on it. Oh, now I see. Where’d you get hold of that?”

He laughed.

“You didn’t need to bother about it. I copied it. Yes, I remember I borrowed the envelope from you one day at the hospital, when I was short of paper. ‘The aged pilgrim hastens on the road.’ That’s the sonnet. I read it to Meadows, she thought it was rather pretty and I gave it to her.”

Robert felt himself choking.

“You—you—didn’t write it to her. It wasn’t anything more than, than—”

“What are you staring at me for? You mean was I in love with her?”

“Yes! Yes!”

McCall laughed.

“Why now, where’d you get that idea?”

“In New York, in that café, you recited it. You said something about a girl you had met in France and whom you’d never see again.”

“I was drinking, Ham, wasn’t I? And I’ve met several girls in France, have I not? And why should I say I’d never see Miss Meadows again? You know she lives in Chicago. Especially if I loved her. You act as though you were jealous. I simply said that because I was a trifle drunk and because I thought it would give the poem a better setting.”

Now it all seemed perfectly absurd. Of course, McCall would see Dorothy again. They both lived in Chicago. And—well, it was simply inexplainable. For the first time he realized how much he had been thinking of Dorothy. How often some incident associated with their brief acquaintance had flashed through his mind, only to be suppressed. On the way to Chicago, he had kept thinking of her, had seen her image in the clouds and in the trees. Everywhere Dorothy. Dorothy. Dorothy. But then—

“I suppose you don’t know—” McCall began when the clerk at the desk began calling his name. The colored waiter hurried up.

“I guess it’s de Times wants you,” he said.

McCall excused himself and hurried to the phone. Robert stared at the plate.

“Anything else, sir?” asked the waiter.

McCall rushed back.

“Off on a big story!” he cried. “May be gone a few days. I’ll call you when I come back. Take your time about finishing. It’s charged to my account.”

He signed his name to the slip.

“Well, so long, Ham. Sorry, but business is business.”

He shook hands and hurried out of the room.

XXXI

It was surprising how merely meeting McCall once more should so strongly revive old memories clustering about Dorothy. There was his first memory of her at the hospital—her cool hand on his forehead; her quick, skillful movements; her sympathetic smile. There was Dorothy at the Luxembourg Gardens, holding his hand and looking gently down at the ground. There was the kiss—like a scarlet memory. There were a hundred little gestures, glances of her eyes, movements of her hands, the way she patted back a stray wisp of hair—a hundred nothings. All these came back to him now.

After leaving the Press Club, he had been unable to reach Levin by phone—he was still busy on his case—and so he had walked eastward to Michigan Avenue and then along the row of shops, stopping to peer into windows, viewing the stream of fashionably attired men and women and the swiftly passing motor cars and taxis. A sooty, green park ran along the lake front and a gray stone building of classic design commanded it. Beyond the park Lake Michigan looked green and cool and clean. As he walked, Robert kept fancying that he saw Dorothy just ahead of him, but whenever he quicked his pace he would find it simply an illusion—a passing resemblance.

He turned west to La Salle Street—two rows of gigantic structures— banks, trust companies, brokerages mainly—overshadowing a current of business men, their bankers, lawyers and clerks, and of hurrying vehicles. To the south, at the end of the street, he recognized the Board of Trade Building.

Clinton Freeman, the man in charge of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau, proved a hair taller than Robert, blond and built like a tackle—a chap one could easily like. He had come out of the war a first lieutenant, had been stationed with Southern troops for several months and had grown to admire Southerners in a general way, without analysing his reasons for it. He liked their soft accent and liked to mimic it, throwing in an inordinate number of “you-alls” and drawling out his words at exaggerated length. He liked their geniality and their easy air of self-confidence. He had found them generous, courteous—even chivalrous, when they referred to women—and light-hearted—the virtues of aristocracy. From these acquaintances Freeman had learned the Southerner’s viewpoint on lynching—the need of keeping the inferior black man in his place, the necessity of stamping out “the only crime for which a nigger is ever lynched.”

“I’m mighty glad to see you!” Freeman had an effusive manner and gripped hands like a wrestler. “They wrote you were coming and sent several wires. Come right in!”

Robert followed into a private office and, on a comfortable swivel chair, swapped war and football experiences. Yes, Freeman had played football, on a small mid-Western college team, and remembered reading of Hamilton’s exploits at Harvard.

“I’ll bet you could have raised hob with the Yale line,” Robert appraised him frankly. “I think your Western teams are on a par with the East’s best. Too bad they don’t meet oftener.”

Freeman agreed as to the strength of the Western teams.

“Now,” he asked, a bit flattered, “what’s your plan of work? Do you smoke?” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a box of cigars.

“Thanks!” Robert selected one. “Well—my plan is a little vague.”

Freeman nodded sympathetically and offered him a light. Robert puffed meditatively for a moment.

“Of course, I’m supposed to map out a definite campaign. I understand you have been gathering data, getting up lists and so on, you know—” he waved his hand—“as a sort of basis for me to work on. Divide the city into districts, get Bogeys to work each one, then go to another city and so on. But—”

“Yes, we’ve got quite a lot of dope here! Pardon me, what were you going to say?”

“There are some things about the Tribe I wanted to ask you about. You know I’ve just been taken in.”

“Well, I’m pretty green myself. Only a month or so.”

Robert explained some of his perplexities, the questions over which he had puzzled on the train.

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother too much about that,” said Freeman. “The main object is to get members, find out what they’re interested in and sell them from that angle. That states’ rights stuff doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t mention it at all. It might go well in the South, but not here, except, perhaps, to some Democrats, only the trouble is that most of them are Catholics.”

“But why is it on our cards?”

Freeman grinned.

“Well, somebody thought it was a good thing. Personally, I don’t. But somebody had to decide. Of course, it depends on how far you carry states’ rights. Take federal meat inspection or the pure food act or the federal income tax—those were all opposed because they interfered with states’ rights. And I suppose the Southern mill owners naturally oppose a federal child-labor law. But that’s nothing to get memberships on. You’re probably right. I suppose it was simply taken over from the old Know Knothing party platform, when states’ rights meant no interference with slavery. So I’d just forget it. Nobody notices it on the card and thinks it means some sort of guarantee of personal liberty like freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which the Constitution guarantees us anyway.”

Robert almost admired, without in any way approving, Freeman’s easy manner of using or discarding an argument according to his belief in its power to convince. If an argument didn’t convince he simply dropped it, and he never apologized for having used a false or fallacious one. He had a bass voice, which he could let out on occasion, especially when he spoke on the Tribal ideal of patriotism.

“The Trick Track Tribe is not merely a political party to secure this or that law or set of laws, Hamilton. It is a militant group, formed to combat all the forces that are attacking Americanism.” He brought his fist down on the desk with a bang. “States’ rights may or may not be of particular importance. National prohibition may or may not meet favor with all true Americans, but there can be no question about the supremacy of the white race, the rights guaranteed us by the American Constitution, separation of church and state, the sanctity of the home.” The last phrase fairly rolled out of Freeman’s eloquent mouth. “It is our aim to guard the supremacy of the white race, protect our Constitution from the radicals who would attack it and keep the hand of the Pope from clutching at our state. In every way we shall work to conserve this country and to confound the enemies within its walls as well as without its gates, to support the government in enforcing its laws and to aid the government whenever and wherever it seems inadequate to cope with its foes. By God, we’ll have law and order if we have to terrorize every other man, woman and child in this country, and if we have to tar and feather every person who doesn’t toe the mark!”

Freeman was a man who might easily sway an audience. It was not so much what he said, but how he said it. Even Robert felt himself carried away. There was something about him when he became excited over his theme that reminded one of Griffith. Both, then, had a natural eloquence. And both, when they fell back into the discussion of more commonplace subjects, appeared to relax—Griffith into a bored carelessness, Freeman into a broad friendliness.

“Before you start working, you ought to look around the city a bit.” Freeman looked at his watch. “I’ll be busy for another hour or so, or perhaps we’d better start out some morning. I suppose you’re a stranger here.”

“Practically,” said Robert. “But I think I’d rather wait until some other time. It’s too late now.” He made some remark about having a lot of “things” to attend to—a nebulous idea thrown out so that he might be alone that evening.

A stenographer opened the door and tossed a publication on the desk. Freeman glanced at it.

“Before you go,” he said, “take this along. Never seen a colored paper before, have you?”

“No.”

“Well, just read it. Some colored fanatics want social equality with the whites, repeal of all laws prohibiting intermarriage of blacks and whites and junk like that.”

“Well, if we had them down in Corinth we’d know how to fix ’em.”

“I’ll say you would!”

They shook hands warmly.

“You probably want to be alone tonight, but any time you’re lonely—you know, just give me a ring.”

“All right.”

Robert stuck the paper in his pocket and left.

He got another cinder in his eye returning to the hotel, and found his room lonesome and noisy. Two blocks away a skyscraper was being erected and the continual rat-a-tat of the riveters, like the bullets of machine guns, mingled with the repeated blasts of patrolmen’s whistles, the noise of hundreds of vehicles and of thousands of human beings. His nostrils were filled with fine particles of coal and dust. Robert was lonesome and wondered why he had refused Freeman’s invitation. Of course, there were letters to write and booklets to read, but then it was only a little after four and he would have all evening for that.

Because it was the thing he least wished to do, he decided to write Margaret first of all. His fountain pen was dry and the ink well in the combination table and desk held only some black powder and a dead fly. He telephoned to the desk and while waiting for the ink idly looked through the telephone directory. The advertisements. The Hamiltons. The M’s. He was conscious that his heart was beating unusually fast. But there were so many Meadows that it was impossible even to guess which might be the right one. He telephoned to Levin’s home again, leaving his name and telephone number.

As he did so, he had a peculiar feeling of slipping back in time a half year—their last meeting in New York, the sense of their friendship. He wondered whether belonging to the Tribe would put an end to that.

A perspiring bell boy brought the ink, took the tip thankfully and made some remark about the weather. The door closed behind him and Robert began writing. It was dreadful business telling her about the family financial troubles. Why should he do it? Well, it had to be done somehow. He wondered why it should be Margaret—how they had really become engaged.

Levin surprised him by telephoning from the lobby, just as he was dashing off the last line. He hastily addressed the envelope, folded the letter, slipped it inside and grabbed his hat. He looked guiltily at a little pile of Tribal propaganda and placed it in the dresser drawer out of sight. The Tribe was, somehow, against the Jews. He hadn’t found out why yet, but it seemed more decent to have the booklets out of sight.

Levin was pacing the lobby, the same old Levin, only a bit overworked perhaps, nervous. But it was good to see him again. Levin’s face lit up.

“It’s like being in Paris again,” he remarked. “Welcome to Chicago!” He would have had Robert up to the house, but something made that impossible. His sister was having a little society meeting—or something like that.

“It’s great to see you again, Doc,” said Hamilton.

“You have come just in time. I needed someone to talk to.” Levin knew a restaurant, De Jonghe’s, and whisked him to it. It was somewhat Gallic, not exactly a French restaurant, but as French as one might reasonably expect five thousand miles west of Paris. And the food was delicious. They lingered over it.

“You look—” Robert paused. “Have you just fallen into love or out?”

Levin laughed.

“Well, perhaps, out. Not exactly, though.” He changed the subject. “What’s that?” He had noticed the paper in Robert’s pocket.

“Oh, let me see. Oh, yes, some nigger paper.” He laid it on the table.

“Ah, The Torch.” Levin picked it up and began turning the pages. “It’s one of the leading colored papers in the country now. And—by George—guess who’s running it!”

“How the dickens should I know who’s running a nigger paper? Got a cigarette on you?”

“Never mind, I’ll order cigars. Sure, you know him. The fellow who saved your life in France.”

“The nigger! Williams?”

“Yes, Williams. He’s considered one of the highest literary authorities in the United States. You ought to see him while you’re here.”

“I would,” said Robert. “I would, if he weren’t a nigger.”

“Oh, rats, I thought you had gotten over that!”

A waiter appeared, set a bottle of wine and glasses on the table and offered a box of cigars. Robert took one, laid it on the table and sipped thoughtfully at his wine. Had he changed? And had he changed back again? A nigger was a nigger to him once more. But in Corinth, yes, even in Corinth, he had put in a word for the despised black. Once he had thought that the ideals born of the war, the spirit of democracy and justice and idealism, would last. Here it was—how many months? two months, not quite three, since his homecoming—and he was back again. Or was it simply the pressure of Corinth—Margaret, Pinkney, his father, his set. Catholic. Jew. The Trick Track Tribe. Well, one had to live in his own world. And anyway a nigger was black and ugly and overworked.

“But I really couldn’t go to him. Bah! Shake his hand? No thanks!”

“The reaction has set in,” remarked Levin. “And you’re an example.” He lit a cigar and puffed for a moment. “Now it’s the nigger. Next it will be—why where you come from, Corinth, you’ve got your Trick Track Tribe—an organization with the identical aims of the secret societies of savages and based on nothing but prejudices.”

“But you must admit that the nigger is different,” protested Robert. “He has always been the accursed of races. He has always been a slave. He has never had a civilization, never had a government, never created anything. Africa! What would it be if it weren’t for the whites? Hell, these coons who wait on the tables and shine shoes would still be savages in the jungles, without education and without religion, if it weren’t for the white man.”

“I’ll admit nothing,” Levin retorted. “You speak from prejudice. Take Williams for instance. He’s educated, cultured, refined. He does hold a high position in the literary world and among his own race. Don’t sneer! But you wouldn’t visit him simply because he’s black.”

“Well, I’ll admit that Williams is all that you say. He’s an exception. I’ll admit that there are a thousand such exceptions in the world. What of it? What has that to do with what I have said? I said that the nigger has always been a slave, that he has always—”

Levin interrupted.

“You have an idea that the Negro is somehow sub-human?”

“Well—yes, if you put it that way!”

“That’s a belief that is based neither on science nor on history. It is flatly contradicted by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Arabian experience, and it is being contradicted in this country today. Whether Negroes are equal in capacity to white men—that is on the average—or even whether they have produced or will produce a single genius worthy to rank with the highest geniuses of the white race is an idle and unimportant question. They can at least gain their livelihood as laborers and artisans. They can operate their own farms. They can take their place in the mines and the forests. Let them have fair play and they will naturally find their right place, wherever that may be. The Tribe talks of Negro disloyalty, of seditious plots with the Bolsheviki. There is not a shred of evidence to back these extravagant charges against an entire race. But if the white men treated them with fairness and justice they would have no reason to fear even these mythical plots. Experience has shown that whenever aliens are treated as citizens, they become citizens, whatever may be their religion or race. Give the American Negro but half a chance and you will find that he loves and hates, not with an African, but with an American heart.

“You say that the Negro has never had a civilization. He has had one of the most ancient of civilizations, with centers of culture at Ghana, Melle and Timbuctoo. There were kingdoms and empires in Songhay and Zymbabwe. There were art and industry in Yuruba and Benien, Negroes worked in iron long before the European. They wove. They carved. They had their music. They had a well-organized tribal government, with town meetings and market places. Those are the elements of civilization—not our civilization—not the civilization of the cold North or East, of Europe or Asia—but a highly developed civilization adapted to Africa. Out of Africa came the ivory and gold of the remotest times. Africans—your niggers—welded iron, practiced agriculture and carried on trade when Europe was still a wilderness. Your niggers sat on the throne of the Pharaohs in Egypt.”

“Niggers the kings of Egypt! Why how—?”

“The next time you see a picture of the great sphinx of Ghizeh, study its features. Thick lips. Flat nose. High cheek bones. The features are those of a Negro. And the Pharaohs did not erect sphinxes in honor of their slaves! Yes, Negroes, during certain dynasties, ruled Egypt, the most ancient of civilizations, the birthplace of learning. And it was a black woman, Queen Nefertari, who is the most venerated figure in Egyptian history.”

“I never knew that.” Robert puffed thoughtfully.

“And what did the white man do for Africa? For four hundred years, white Europe traded in black human beings, robbed Africa of a hundred million human souls, transformed the face of her social life, overthrew her organized government, distorted her ancient industry and snuffed out her cultural development. Today, instead of taking slaves from Africa, white men are converting Africa into a huge plantation, where the natives toil and die under the lash for the profit of the white world. Yes, the white men brought religion—the Bible in one hand and the rifle in the other. And, oh, yes, they brought another thing—gin.

“Listen to this. It’s from a colored writer, Du Bois: ‘Twenty centuries after Christ, Black Africa—prostrated, raped and shamed—lies at the foot of the conquering Philistines of Europe. Beyond the awful sea, a black woman is weeping and waiting, with her sons on her breast. What shall the end be? The world-old and fearful things—war and wealth, murder and luxury? Or shall it be a new thing—a new peace and a new democracy of all races—a great humanity of equal men?’”

Robert laid down his cigar.

“I guess, we have been a little rough on them,” he said.

Levin developed the idea of the reaction, the growth of hatreds, the development of the mob spirit.

“You can’t get any two men to think exactly alike on any question,” he said. “But, with a little knowledge of human nature and the gift of oratory or a forceful way of writing, you can get millions to feel alike—especially to hate alike. The crowd just now is stirred up against alcohol. In Rome the crowd used to be stirred up for it and went on Bacchanals.”

“But alcohol does detract from one’s efficiency, doesn’t it?”

“Certainly! But who drinks to become more efficient? You drink to become less efficient, to forget your troubles, to relax, to forget. Granted that alcohol makes a man unable to turn a grindstone as rapidly as water. His ultimate object in turning the grindstone is to be able to buy pleasure, which includes alcohol. Take away his pleasure and you take away his object for working.”

“Well, I hate to see prohibition come. But I guess most of the people want it.”

“Yes, that is the intolerance of your mob. The tyranny of the majority. If fifty-one per cent of the people don’t want to drink, or don’t want to smoke, or don’t want to sing songs on Sunday, they make everybody else conform. The mob uses its liberty to deprive the individual of his freedom.”

For the first time Robert felt ill at ease in Levin’s company. The knowledge that Levin was a Jew and that he himself was a member of the Trick Track Tribe made him feel uneasy, as though he were a traitor, but whether to his old friendship or to the Tribe he was uncertain. They sat talking for a while, exchanging reminiscences of Paris and New York, and Levin finally walked with Robert back to his hotel.

“Be sure to come up Friday,” said Levin.

Robert promised, yet he knew that he would not keep the appointment. It was bad enough going out with him, but he had been unable to avoid that. But to break bread with him in his own house, to accept his hospitality and that of his family, that would be going too far. Not while he remained a member of the Tribe.

XXXII

Robert called up Friday—Mrs. Levin answered the phone—and pleaded a mythical headache. No. No. Her son was not to visit him. It was nothing. Something that would go away of its own accord. Only he would have to eat very little and get a good rest. Mrs. Levin offered some advice—aspirin tablets, or something like that. It was rather confusing, her insistent hospitality, and she rang off only after she had gained his promise to come the next week.

Robert was growing a bit more accustomed to Chicago. Freeman had taken him, over his protest, to Armours, where he had seen the rather gruesome spectacle of hundreds of hogs and cattle converted into pork and beef by swift knives and dexterous hands. He had never dreamed of this world of cattle pens, stretching out in all directions like a vast sea and filled with thousands of bellowing animals. He had never imagined such a tangle of tracks as those over which the loaded cattle cars rumbled. And there were cowboys on ponies.

He was becoming accustomed to the rush of people among the streets and to the noise. But the soot still bothered him. He had visited the Art Institute and found it a haven from the surrounding spirit of commercialism and decided to visit the Field Museum—a glittering white palace of classical design that rose at the far end of a promontory jutting into the lake a mile or so south.

In some places there were almost as many Negroes as in the South. But unlike the South, the Negroes sat beside you in the presence of white ladies—like the white men. For the first time Robert perceived that in going back to Corinth he had unconsciously slipped back to his pre-war attitude. He had taken Jim Crow cars for granted. He had taken it for granted that colored men should step out of his path when he walked down the street. These things had all seemed perfectly natural in Corinth. He had not even noticed them until now.

Levin had dropped in once, to inquire about Robert’s cold, but had not called again. McCall was still out of town, and so Robert spent most of his time with Freeman. The latter had suggested that Robert do most of his work in his own room, because the identity of the bureau with the Tribe had already been discovered by investigators—newspaper men—and it might be more advantageous, at least for a while, to keep the identity of the new Grand Bogey secret.

Freeman had not yet explained the basis of the Tribe’s antagonism to the Catholics and the Jews, nor, so far as that went, to the Negro—although that was something that one could more easily understand. Freeman always brought up points, which he gleaned from The Beacon or from some similar source and the authenticity of which was often doubtful. Often the statements contradicted each other and then Freeman always grinned good-naturedly and showed that the arguments were really not his, but those of The Beacon or of a misinformed writer, some anti- this or that fanatic.

He always started out by emphasising the “big points” of the Tribe. They were sitting in Robert’s room one evening.

“If I were you I’d go after the big things—enforcement of law, white supremacy, pure Americanism and practical Christianity. Those are the main things,” said Freeman, pounding the table.

“You ask why the Catholic should be excluded? Because, as this card shows, he swears allegiance to a foreign potentate. He’s an alien although he benefits by our laws. If the Catholics could, they would unite the church and the state.”

“I see, but supposing I get a prospect and he asks me how I know that.”

Freeman laughed.

“Ninety-nine out of a hundred don’t ask. Ninety-nine out of a hundred men never ask about anything. They’ll accept a positive statement, if it’s positive enough. But if they do ask, you can hand them some of our cards or literature. Here’s some good stuff in The Beacon. Listen to this, for instance: ‘The National Democratic Committee is by majority a Roman Catholic body. It usually has a Roman Catholic President and Secretary. Catholics influenced the national campaign which elected Wilson. The President’s private secretary is a Roman Catholic.’”

“Wait a minute,” cried Hamilton. “I’m a Southern Democrat. Do you mean to insinuate that Wilson is controlled by a group of Catholics!”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m simply reading what The Beacon says. If a Democrat would get sore at it, show him something else. That’s why I say you have to study the man you approach and convince him accordingly.”

“But that’s not the point,” said Hamilton. “You say Catholics influenced the national campaign. That’s an insinuation. You don’t say how they influenced it. Everybody knows that many Irish Catholics are Democrats and that naturally they voted for Wilson, just as the South naturally, for historic reasons, always votes Democratic; but you infer that the influence was dishonorable. And what’s the disgrace about a Roman Catholic being the President’s secretary? He had to be a Protestant or a Catholic.”

“No, there’s no disgrace, only the next fact shows that over 70 per cent of all President Wilson’s appointments were Catholic.”

“I don’t believe it! What’s the authority?”

Freeman puzzled over the word.

“L-U-T-H—Lutherische, I can’t pronounce it. Some German name.”

“Some old war propaganda, I see. On the face of it would you go to a German authority for anything about Wilson’s war administration?”

Freeman laughed.

“Hell, no! In fact, I didn’t know where The Beacon got this stuff when I picked it up or I wouldn’t bother to read it. Nope, there’s nothing pro-Heinie about me.” He threw the paper into a waste basket. “Now, Mr. Hamilton,” he turned in his swivel chair and leaned forward, “I’m just as sincere about this thing as you are. I wouldn’t tell any one a lie knowingly. If I had noticed the source of that article I wouldn’t have read it to you. But the Tribe has a definite object as I told you. It’s against the Catholic, the Jew, the alien and the Negro, because these four classes are incompatible with the Tribe’s ideas of pure Americanism—none of these classes can be truly American in every sense of the word. Now we know that, and, in trying to convert members, we naturally wish to convince them by arguments. The Beacon is a magazine which carries a lot of stuff against these four classes and so we frequently distribute it. But, as far as I am concerned, and I am sure as every good Tribesman is concerned, we do not mean to disseminate falsehoods. If you see an article that strikes you as inaccurate in The Beacon, don’t use it. In fact, write to the editor about it. I’m sure he would be glad to be corrected. You know how it is. Any one is liable to make a mistake.”

“Well, maybe, but just a minute.” Hamilton pulled The Beacon out of the waste-basket and glanced over it.

“Well, here we say that the German-Jewish bankers started the war.”

“Sure, what about it?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but on our Do You Know card we say that a secret treaty made by the Pope started the war. Now one of those statements must be wrong. One must be a lie.”

“No,” said Freeman. “Don’t you see, that Do You Know card is gotten out by the Tribe? That’s something we say. That article on the German-Jewish bankers starting the war is simply a re-write of a statement made by Howard Brooks. The Beacon simply picked it up. They’re not responsible for Brooks’ views and the Tribe isn’t responsible for everything The Beacon prints.”

Robert was growing exasperated, but he tried to keep his temper. He puffed at his cigar in silence for a moment.

“Well, what do you think of that charge by Brooks yourself?” he finally asked.

Freeman smiled.

“He makes good tires. But, seriously, I’ll tell you. Of course, that sort of stuff is all right for the yokels. I studied money and banking at college. I’m not a financial authority or anything like that, but I know, of course, that the present economic world could not exist without banks and credit. We deposit our dues in a bank, and I suppose that Griffith must be financing the Tribe through some bank, although,” he grinned, “very probably not Kuhn, Loeb and Company.” He threw his head back and blew a smoke ring into the air.

“Brooks simply says something to the effect that the big international bankers saw an opportunity to make money by fomenting a war, and stirred things up. Of course, if Germany could win, any banker who lent the German government a large sum would naturally make a large profit. As a matter of fact, though, I think Germany had some scheme of labor banks, in which the working people themselves deposited.”

“Yes,” said Hamilton. “I think the Germans even used to brag about the people financing their own war.”

“Of course, there’s no proof that any certain banker did stir up the war. If there were, I don’t think that the allies would have been bashful about demanding his surrender. If any German-Jewish or German anything else clique of bankers had been the cause of the war, they would have been handed over to some tribunal, because the Versailles treaty insists on punishment for those guilty of starting the war. So that’s probably hot air. Of course, bankers backing their country after it is in the war, is a different matter. It would be first a matter of loyalty and second of compulsion. The German-Jewish bankers would naturally support the German government; but that’s a different thing from starting a war, just as the French-Jewish bankers supported the French government, the English, the English and the American, the American. And you could say the same thing about Protestant bankers.”

He puffed a few more rings into the air.

“Ah, I’ve got it. Stinnes. Stinnes.”

“What’s that?”

“Stinnes, the great banker, the friend of the Kaiser, president of steamship lines, owner of iron and steel monopolies, mills, factories—the great magnet of Germany. The war made him a colossus, a rival of Rockefeller in wealth. And he’s a Jew!”

“No, he’s not,” said Robert.

“Of course, he is. Haven’t you ever seen his picture—derby hat pulled over his forehead. Sort of long nose and black beard? Why he’s a typical Jew.”

“But he’s a Lutheran,” protested Robert. “I don’t care how he looks. You got that impression that he was Jewish because the first stories about him said he was. But in the latest stories that was corrected. He’s a Lutheran.”

“Are you sure?” Freeman looked crestfallen.

“Absolutely. I can show you the magazine article.”

“No, I believe you. There goes another good point.”

Robert’s eyes suddenly blazed. It was as though something had flared in his brain. And it angered him. It carried him back to his solitary attempt at debating.

“You say you are sincere in carrying out the mission of the Trick Track Tribe,” he cried. “Don’t interrupt me! Yet you sit there like a lawyer trying to frame up a case against an opponent, or a kid debater. Anything to win. If you have anything against the Jews or the Catholics, I want to see it. I don’t care a pig’s ear for any arguments about what the Jews or the Catholics might do or might have done. I can make up that sort of stuff myself. The Jews have a plot to assassinate the President. The Catholics are planning a world-wide revolution.”

Freeman was equally angry.

“Stop! We don’t make such wild assertions.”

“You do,” cried Hamilton. “I’ve simply reversed the charges. Here’s your statement that ‘the man who shot President Garfield was a Roman Catholic. The man who shot President Lincoln was a Roman Catholic.’ And in another article you say, or somebody says, that the Jews are planning to spread Bolshevism throughout the world. When you say that Roman Catholics killed two presidents, you mean to insinuate that there is something about Catholicism itself that makes it hostile to American government, that makes it possible that another Roman Catholic will later kill another president. If the relation were merely accidental you wouldn’t mention it. It wouldn’t be logical. You might as well say that the man who shot McKinley ate onions.”

His voice fell and he leaned forward in his chair confidentially. “This is the thing that brought it home to me,” he continued. “You were basing an accusation against the Jews as a people because Stinnes, the Kaiser’s backer, was supposedly a Jew. Now that it turns out that he’s a Lutheran, you don’t propose an attack upon Lutherans for causing the war, do you? Before, you didn’t honestly know that Stinnes had the slightest connection with the cause of the war. But because you thought he was a Jew, you would have tricked me into assuming it, so as to make a point.”

“You’re right,” Freeman agreed finally. “The Tribe can’t afford to use unfair arguments. It stands for justice first of all. It stands for pure Americanism. But, first, in order to have it, we must have pure Americans. You can’t have it with Catholics, Jews, Negroes and aliens. They don’t belong. They have alien beliefs, customs, traditions. We can fight them fairly.

“I cannot help being what I am, racially. I am not a Jew, nor a Catholic, nor a Negro, nor a foreigner. I am an Anglo-Saxon white man, so ordained by God and so constituted and trained that I cannot conscientiously take either my politics or my religion from some secluded ass on the other side of the world.

“Now, if somebody else happens to be a Jew, I can’t help it any more than he can. Or if he happens to be black I can’t help that either. If he were born under a foreign flag, I couldn’t help it—but there is one thing I can do. I can object to his un-American propaganda being preached in my home or practised in the solemn assembly of real Americans!”

His voice was eloquent with emotion.

“I have fought for the American flag and, if God so wishes, I am glad to die for it. But that flag must float over a land untainted by any alienism. You ask me how I know that Roman Catholics cannot be good Americans and I ask you to read the oath of the Knights of Columbus. It requires no further argument. It speaks for itself. You ask me why Jews cannot become good Americans and I answer because they are aliens by race, by religion and by tradition.” His voice dropped.

“As for the colored problem: you know more about it than I do. You’ve grown up with it. But some day I want to show you what Chicago is up against. I want to take you through the colored belt so that you can get some idea of how the blacks are pouring into Chicago.”

He went into details. The blacks were becoming self-assertive. They were walking proudly along the streets. They were demanding social equality in their publications. They were moving outside the black belt into white neighborhoods and spoiling property values. They were sitting next to white men—and even white women!—in the surface and elevated cars. They were developing professional men and business men, riding around in automobiles, smoking cigars. But worst of all, they were competing against white men for jobs.

“You see what’s happening in Washington? The same thing will happen in Chicago!”

XXXIII

There was a stir in the sultry July air of the metropolis of inland America. During the World War thousands of blacks had been imported to fill the depleted ranks of white men in the reeking stockyards, the sweltering foundries, the clamourous shops. With their families they had swarmed into the homes of the abandoned Red Light district to the number of 125,000 and were even crowding, here and there, beyond their boundaries into the sacred precincts of the whites.

White working men, banded into labor unions, had frowned upon their coming, but the industrial and political barons had willed it. These latter had given them work at almost white men’s pay, welded them into a political unit and permitted them to elect black representatives to sit among the city fathers. They had been lulled into the illusion that here, at last, they were free from the howling mob, the stake and torch, the hatred of the South.

They no longer bowed their heads as they walked along the streets. They could almost look a white man in the eye. They sat beside the whites on the street cars and in the “L’s,” talked to them, ate beside them at some restaurants and even, in certain dance halls, danced with their daughters. A few had intermarried.

The whites were growing restless. A spirit was blowing through them and uniting them. White workmen were becoming frightened and then enraged at the black intruders, who competed with them for food. Clerks who sat in the “L’s” turned their nostrils away from the Negroes beside them. Men of a hundred occupations, creeds and politics, who had been individuals since the war, suddenly found themselves once more a unit—a unit because of their common color. The Negroes felt the unity of their blackness.

Freeman smelled the coming storm, like a thousand other men, and prophesied about it freely.

“It’s Sunday,” he said one afternoon as they sat in the lobby of Robert’s hotel. “Well, perhaps I don’t blame you much for not wanting to visit some of the black and tan dance halls. I realize how you Southerners must feel about it. But you haven’t anything to do today anyway, and you must see the district. You can’t imagine what it’s like until you see it for yourself.”

“I’ll go,” Robert consented reluctantly, “but it rather goes against me to see a nigger walking with a white woman, and—”

“Well, after we get public opinion organized you won’t see a white girl walking with a coon!”

It was hot and sultry. It would have been hot even for Corinth and one noticed waves of air rising from the pavement. They rode to Twenty-Second street by elevated.

“There it starts,” said Freeman, pointing through the window as they drew near the station. “See all those dirty, brick tenements? And a few years ago there were only a few thousand in the whole city. What’s going on there? It looks like a mob.”

They reached the street and found it deserted save for dusky heads in the windows.

“Every one must have gone over there,” said Freeman. “Let’s see what’s doing. They look excited.”

“I’m not interested in any nigger meetings,” replied Robert. “There’s the lake. It’s hot as the deuce. Let’s walk down there.”

They had walked perhaps a block and a half east when Freeman suddenly turned. Robert had also heard the sound.

“Gee, they’re coming!”

Robert turned. Perhaps fifty blacks, men and boys, brandishing clubs and rocks, started at a dog trot up the street, whooping and yelling.

“They’ve got us cut off from the station. Hamilton, come on!”

“Why should we? They can’t be after us.”

Through an open window a mulatto, thrust her head.

“Hey, you white men,” she called. “They’s trouble and you betta all beat it while de beating’s good. I know you just come, so you ain’t done nothing.”

“What’s the matter?”

Other heads appeared in windows, all talking and shouting at once. A black child had been drowned by a white man and the blacks were retaliating.

“Follow me!” yelled Freeman. “Around the corner to the car line.” They set off and as they did so, the blacks in their rear set up a cry and broke into a run. A stone whistled through the air and hit the sidewalk two feet ahead.

As they turned the corner a Negro darted out of a door with a yell, a stick in his hand. Hamilton, for the first time in months, felt the old pain in his chest. A few more steps and Freeman was drawing away. Robert suddenly whirled around and struck out with all his force. It was his only chance. The Negro stopped and ducked. The blow shot over his head, but Robert’s shoulder crashed into his chin and both fell. Robert felt the Negro wriggling beneath him, even before he opened his eyes, and attempted to regain his feet. He heard the shouts of the mob. He tried to rise. The black man clutched at his coat. Robert yanked it away and kicked himself loose and went staggering backward. Some one was clutching him by the arm. The cries of the mob grew louder.

“Automobile, c’mon!” It was Freeman pulling him forward and shouting hoarsely. They ran into the road and the speeding car suddenly slid to a halt trembling, its brakes set.

“Don’t stop! They’re after us!” They scrambled over the side into the back seat.

The car jumped ahead and went roaring down the road. A volley of stones shot through the air and shattered the wind-shield. The mob yelled.... Robert looked around. The mob was running toward the lake. They were out of the black belt, and the driver slackened his pace.

“What’s up?”

They told him.

“Every one of ’em ought to be lynched!”

The man at his side swore loudly.

“We ought to go back and burn the entire district.”

Robert was panting.

“Now you Northerners’ll know what we’ve got to put up with!”

“You’re right,” they swore.

In his room, Robert flung his coat across a chair and threw himself upon the bed, exhausted. His chest was heaving, he was wet with perspiration. Race riots in Chicago. God! In Corinth they would burn the colored population! He wondered what would happen here.

The door suddenly flew open.

“H’lo, Ham. What the devil! Are you sick?” It was McCall.

“No,” he panted, “tired. Doing some sprinting.” He untwisted himself and rose shakily. “But where have you been? Gee, it’s great to see you again.”

“You must have got a bump,” remarked McCall, as they shook hands. “Oh, I’ve just got back from a trip. I’ve been getting some stuff on the Trick Track Tribe. Trying to connect some atrocities with the Tribe. But what have you been doing, anyway? Playing football?”

Robert laughed.

“Almost.”

He narrated his experiences in the black belt. McCall whistled.

“When I was over in the office a little while ago, they told me something about it. So you were in it? Do you know how it started?”

“Only what a mulatto woman said, and she probably was lying.”

“No, that was straight. They have a line at the Twenty-Sixth street beach. The blacks bathe on one side and the whites on the other. No law about it, but it’s just a rule that both respect. Got a match?” He pulled out his cigarette case. “Well, a little pickaninny crossed the line and climbed on a raft. A white man threw a stone at him, struck the kid and knocked him in the water. He drowned. He probably didn’t mean to do it. There was a white patrolman in the district and when he took his time about investigating and making an arrest, the blacks started organizing. They had a few run-ins, but I thought that the thing had probably died down.”

“No, about fifty of them were running toward the lake when I saw them.”

“I suppose there’ll be trouble, then. Of course, only one white man is to blame and he ought to be punished. But the blacks feel the mass hatred against them. That rope keeping them to one side of the beach is a symbol of it. The throwing of the stone, another. Last week the race riots in Washington. This week in Chicago. You’d think that such a thing was impossible after the war.”

“Oh, well, you’ll always have a color line.”

“Oh, you’ll always have different colors, but I mean that race prejudice, that unreasoning mass hatred. Levin was right about the reaction following the war. Take the Trick Track Tribe. The things I’ve found out about them. The mayor of a little town in Kansas tarred and feathered, for instance, simply because he said he was opposed to the Tribe.”

“But look at all the niggers in Chicago, wouldn’t the Tribe—?”

“No! A thousand times no! You think if you had the mob organized to hate the Negro that everything would be all right.”

“We’re not telling anyone to hate the nigger. I mean the Tribe isn’t. The Tribe wants to put the nigger in his place. And he isn’t in his place in Chicago.”

“Bunk! If you have a Tribe here, you will only crystallize all the class hatred.”

“But it’s here.”

“Sure it’s here. But it’s the duty of intelligent men and women to break it.”

“So you’d have equal social rights for the nigger, as the nigger writers are advocating, would you? You’d have them marry and—”

“Don’t talk like a damn fool,” interrupted McCall. “Social equality is nothing that can be regulated. It is up to the individual. But you can insure social and economic justice, at least in a measure, and you can at least try to keep racial hatred from flaring up. Don’t you see what the Tribe is doing? It is simply magnifying all the narrow prejudices and hatreds. No man of intelligence could be reasoned into joining it because of its demands. He joins because his prejudices are aroused.”

“Why can’t he? Americanism. Pure womanhood—”

“Don’t talk like an ass. These terms don’t mean a blamed thing. Everybody is for Americanism, those niggers who chased you down the street as much as any one. Every one is for pure womanhood, except a few degenerates whom your prisons take care of. White supremacy is simply the Tribe’s way of saying black hatred. That’s what the Tribe stands for—hatred, hate of the black, of the Jew and of the Catholic, hate of the labor union—it wants to abolish needless strikes, with a Tribesman, I suppose, to decide which are needless. And then there are states’ rights and prohibition. If you appealed to a man’s reason, you couldn’t get any members, because those planks automatically cut off every one who is a Catholic, a Jew, a Negro, an alien, a Republican, a radical, a believer in organized labor, a liberal or an intellectual. And their insinuations about Wilson—Democrats. Now, then, who’s left? What’s this junk?”

He stooped to pick up one of the folders of the Trick Track Tribe, which had fallen out of Robert’s pocket. It was headed “Knights of Columbus Oath, Fourth Degree.”

“What is this?”

As he read, McCall’s eyes blazed and the arteries of his neck swelled. Robert bit his lips. The time had come. He could no longer dissemble. It was a question of his friendship with McCall—McCall his buddy of the trenches—or loyalty to the Tribe. McCall’s voice was raised in anger: “What’s this blasphemy!”

He read:

“‘When opportunity presents, I shall make and wage relentless war, open and secretly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle and burn alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crash their infants’ heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race.

“‘That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet ... as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus.’”

There was more of it—about denouncing allegiance to Protestant countries and about voting for and employing only Catholics.

McCall’s angry eyes took in the pile of booklets and cards on the dresser. With one stride he crossed the room and began tearing them into bits. Then his contorted, red face grew pale, his lips quivered.

“Hamilton, you—you—” his voice choked. Robert held his breath. “You contemptible spy. From Corinth! I might have known! And—and—” He stood there for a moment, speechless, his hands clenched, his body trembling. He stepped forward and then suddenly turned to the door.

“Mac! Bill!” Robert found his voice. “Let me explain!”

“Explain? Hell!”

McCall reached the door and, without turning to look around, opened it.

“Bill!”

The door slammed. McCall was gone. The torn leaflets on the floor and the window curtains blew upward and fell again. Robert took a step toward the door and stopped. Bill was gone. In the mirror of his dresser Robert saw how white he was.

XXXIV

Robert slept late the next morning, ate a combination breakfast and luncheon and returned to his room. McCall! Friendship! The torn leaflets had been removed by the maid.

Robert removed his coat, collar and shirt and began, very deliberately, to shave. He had never distributed the Knights of Columbus oath. Freeman had assured him that whatever might be the veracity of the articles in The Beacon, the Knights of Columbus oath, at any rate, was accurate. It had been obtained by the Tribe itself.

Robert dried his face. Why must a person always defend what he has done? One may act simply on an impulse—because some one else wants him to do something, because the community in which he lives, his social set or public opinion desires it. But once a person has acted, he builds up reasons to justify himself. Take the Knights of Columbus oath. He had not troubled to investigate it. He had accepted it because it was part of the Tribe’s propaganda and because his father, his mother, Margaret, his social set, believed in the Tribe. The rational thing would be to weigh its value, to investigate its authenticity—and then to accept or reject it. It was the same way with other propaganda. If it was false, Freeman was always inventing excuses. Why had he not investigated their truth before circulating them! And yet, Freeman had insisted that the oath was true.

The telephone bell rang.

“Hello!” It was McCall. He was coming up. Robert took a long breath. McCall! Robert had not expected him to come back again. He wondered why—and was glad, immensely glad. The door opened.

“God, I’m glad—” Robert held out his hand.

“Shut up!” McCall looked very pale and serious, his lips tight. “I want you to listen to me! I think you’re either a scoundrel or a damn fool. I’ve thought it over all night and I’ve decided to be charitable and call you a damn fool.”

Robert started to say something. McCall put up his hand.

“If you interrupt me, I’m going. And if I go, you’ll never see me again. I said I decided that you were a damn fool. I decided that you joined the Tribe because you couldn’t get out of it or because you didn’t know its real object. Most members don’t. They think they’re joining some sort of a crusade. I think Lister is a sincere man, a sincere fool, a fanatic who would have fitted in somewhere beautifully in the Middle Ages and who didn’t know any more about the meaning of Christianity than the fanatics who burned heretics and witches three hundred years ago. That includes Catholics as well as Protestants. I’m not handing myself anything.

“Griffith I think is a crook—I say I think he is—because he personally gets a rake-off on every member, because he sells robes and masks at a profit that the Tribe would boycott a Jew for making, and because he sells the muddy river water used in your Tribal initiations for ten dollars a quart. I can’t conceive of any man with the broad mission he says he has, starting out by overcharging the brothers who are to carry out that mission with him. If you are an official, you know that these are facts and you also know that you get a rake-off for each new member. It is to your interest and to the interest of every Tribal officer to get as many memberships as you can—no matter how much class and racial hatred you spread in getting them—because it brings you actual money. If you can make people believe that the Pope is trying to control the American government, or that Jews, who form about three per cent of the population, are trying to overthrow all government, or that Negroes, who have been persecuted and tortured all their lives and are afraid to move, are plotting with the Bolsheviki or the Hindus to overthrow civilization, it means three dollars for Mr. Griffith, four dollars for the salesman who calls himself a Bogey and one dollar for the state salesman or Grand Bogey—per convert.

“But I won’t inquire into your motives for joining the Tribe. I shall assume that they were worthy and that you were simply gullible. The Tribe’s antagonism to the Catholic is evidently based on its conception of the relation between the Papacy and the United States. The Tribe evidently believes, or pretends to believe, that the Papacy means to control the government of the United States, and that spiritual allegiance to the Pope in some way interferes with secular allegiance to the government of the United States. I say that these are the reasons for the Tribe’s opposition to the Catholic, because the Tribe professes to believe in the freedom of worship. In other words, admittedly the religion of the Catholic, and similarly of the Jew, have nothing to do with the Tribe’s opposition.

“Now, Hamilton, if I can prove to you that the Catholic church is not attempting to control our government and the Catholic church in no way interferes with one’s loyalty to his country, will you promise to resign from the Tribe? If the Tribe is wrong, you will want to resign. If I am wrong, if the Catholic church does mean interference with my Americanism, I will not want to be a Catholic—and I will quit the church. Is that fair?”

“Yes—you give up the church or I give up the Tribe.”

They shook hands. It seemed fair enough. Robert had joined the Tribe because he believed it stood for certain principles. That it attacked certain institutions, not because of blind prejudice, but for definite reasons. If these reasons proved false, there was no reason for the Tribe’s existence—no reason for Robert belonging to it. To continue to be a Tribesman under those circumstances would be dishonest. It would be lending his force, his personality, to a lie.

“Now for the proof,” said McCall. “Hell, what do you or I know about it anyway? Father Callahan does. And if he doesn’t convince you, I’ll quit the church.”

Father Callahan, of St. Gesu Church, proved to be a pleasant, ruddy-faced man of charming manners and ready knowledge. He received them in his library.

“It was quite right of you to come to me,” he smiled, “because many of the attacks of the Trick Track Tribe have been made against the Jesuits and, inasmuch as I, myself, am a member of the Society of Jesus—by the way, Mr. Hamilton, I observe that the Knights of the Trick Track Tribe boast of the most sublime lineage in all history, but I believe that the organization to which I belong may lay claim to a still more sublime lineage.” He smiled. “The lineage of the Catholic church can be traced back some 1850 years before the origin of the Tribe, granting even that the present Tribe is the legitimate descendant of the original Tribe formed in 1867. Inasmuch, however, as the old Tribe was abolished, both by its founders and by the federal government, one may well question how the present Tribe may justly claim to inherit its lineage, which was not too sublime to make the fathers of the order heartily regret that they had ever founded it.”

Father Callahan had a rather delightful way of imparting the mildest of sarcasms. He leaned forward and touched Robert on the knee.

“And I believe the Tribe has also called itself the most dauntless organization known to man. Whether it is really more dauntless than the secret societies of the heathen savages who also fight behind grotesque masks—some splendid examples of which you may be able to find at the Field Museum or, at any rate, in any good book on anthropology—still the fact remains that members of the society of which I am a member have also accomplished certain dauntless deeds. There is no natural monopoly of that quality. You may remember that Father Marquette, for instance, preceded me, in the name of the church, some three hundred years ago, as did also Father Hennepin. You may remember that Joliet and La Salle also showed themselves not lacking in bravery in their explorations which opened up Canada and the entire Northwest. The first trappers and traders with the Indians, who became the first merchants of Chicago and the founders of its first industry, also belonged to the Catholic Church.

“By the way,”—the priest rose—“this discourse may strike you as rather dry. But national prohibition will not go into effect until January and I don’t suppose I should be offending even the keen love of law and order of a Tribesman by offering him a little wine and cake. If you excuse me for a minute?”

Robert settled back comfortably in his chair, his nervousness entirely gone.

“Well, what do you think of him?” asked McCall with a smile.

“Well, I’ll bet he makes religion attractive.”

“Certainly! Why shouldn’t it be? It ought to be the most sublime thing in the world.” They laughed at the accidental use of the word “sublime.” “I look at religion as the most beautiful symbolism in life. I couldn’t worship in an ugly church or under the guidance of a cold and narrow minister or priest.”

Father Callahan appeared in the doorway, his ruddy face smiling and his merry blue eyes sparkling. A servant followed, bearing a small tray on which were three small glasses of red wine and a plate of cake. The latter placed the tray on the table and the priest offered the glasses, invoked a blessing on the food and drink, and took a swallow.

“Ah! Now,” he said, “the really very silly notion that allegiance to the Pope interferes with the loyalty any citizen owes his country, has been exploded a long time ago and is used by no one save a few bigots who do not themselves credit the nonsense they utter. It is really remarkable how such ideas linger, yet I notice that this forms the real basis of the Tribe’s opposition to the Catholic as such. Of course, the church is Catholic and its missionaries go forth to all lands seeking converts. Every human being, we believe, has a soul, and before God all souls are equal. The Church of Christ is not ashamed that many of its members are of the eastern and southern European countries, whose immigrants at present may be regarded as undesirable by American statesmen. We rather take pride that the church has considered the soul of no man unworthy of saving. Our statesmen can probably best determine which elements are most needed in making up the population of the United States. But the church maintains that the desirability of no man as a citizen is ever diminished by his belonging to the Catholic church.

“A man can be a good subject either of a republic or a monarchy and, at the same time, be a devoted adherent of the Holy See. Even non-believers in Catholic doctrine have come to recognize that the better Catholic an individual is, the better citizen he therefore becomes of the country in which he lives.”

Father Callahan took a bite of cake and another swallow of wine.

“The old absurdity,” he went on, “of owing allegiance to a foreign potentate, which was the charge made against American Catholics in Know Nothing times, has been rarely heard and would have been relegated to that obscurity which it deserves except for the sudden rise of the Trick Track Tribe. Spiritual allegiance to the Pope will never interfere with the duties an honest state exacts from its citizens, but, on the contrary, will inspire each citizen to perform his duties better and more conscientiously. But you must have some more cake. That’s right.”

The priest rose, walked to a bookcase and, after studying it a minute, pulled out a volume.

“Can you prove what you have just told him, father?” asked McCall.

“That is exactly what I am about to do. Although I have some authority in the church, you, Mr. Hamilton, will want some greater authority than mine. Have you ever heard of the Baltimore Council? Shortly after Pope Leo the Thirteenth had conferred with the American prelates in Rome, a plenary council of the Catholic Church of the United States was ordered, late in 1884. The acts of this council were approved by the Pope and are enforced throughout the United States. Now, very fortunately, this very subject of church and state was discussed by the fathers of the Baltimore Council and this, by the approval of the Holy See, is the official position of the Catholic Church.”

The priest turned the leaves, found the proper page and handed the book to Robert.

“We repudiate with equal earnestness,” he read, “the assertion that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness to our church to be true Americans; the insinuation that we need to lay aside any of our love for our country’s principles and institutions to be faithful Catholics. To argue that the Catholic Church is hostile to our great republic, because she teaches that ‘there is no power but from God’; because, therefore, back of the events which led to the formation of the republic, she sees the providence of God leading to that issue and, back of our country’s laws, the authority of God as their sanction—this is evidently so illogical and contradictory an accusation that we are astonished to hear it advanced by persons of ordinary intelligence.... To both the Almighty and to His instruments we look with grateful reverence, and to maintain the inheritance of freedom which they have left us, our Catholic citizens will be found to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge anew their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. No less illogical should be the notion that there is aught in the free spirit of our American institutions incompatible with perfect docility to the Church of Christ.”

The next sentence Robert read several times. It seemed to strike at the union of church and state, although—and this seemed natural—such union was blamed upon the selfishness of secular monarchs, seeking greater power. It was natural that the Catholic Church, if it now condemned this union, should see in it, not a usurpation of secular authority by the church, but of ecclesiastical power by the state.

“Narrow, insular, national views and jealousies concerning ecclesiastical authority and church organization may have sprung naturally enough from the selfish policy of certain rulers and nations in bygone times, but they find no sympathy in the spirit of the true American Catholic.”

“I see,” said Robert gravely, handing the book back. It seemed queer that both the Catholics and the Tribesmen should issue proclamations against what was probably the same thing. It was like the two knights fighting each other all day because one declared the shield was red and the other that it was black and then discovering, as they lay exhausted on the ground, that the shield was black on one side and red on the other. Tribesmen and Know Nothingers feared that the church wished to control the state; the Catholic fathers that the state should try to control the church.

“Have you the real fourth degree oath of the Knights of Columbus?” asked McCall.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Robert.

“Yes, it is. You must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Knights of Columbus, Father, are supposed to be trying to seize control of the state by, well, it amounts to murder. Read this.”

He handed over the circular. The priest looked at it and frowned.

“This is a more serious charge,” he said. “I can forgive a person for being honestly mistaken in his view of the relation of the Catholic Church to the state, but this oath must have been written by one or more persons actuated by a hatred of Catholicism and who knew that it must be false. It is not a case of honest ignorance.”

He continued reading, his eyebrows drawn together in a scowl and nodding his head from time to time. Finally he looked up.

“Mr. Hamilton, that charge is not new. It is surprising that it should bob up again, inasmuch as the real oath of the Knights of Columbus was made public several years ago in the course of an investigation into the matter by the Masonic bodies. It was also made public in the course of a contested election case. The false oath, this oath I have here, had been circulated to defeat a candidate who was a fourth degree knight. Inasmuch as the real oath has already been published by our own courts and by the Masons, who are hardly pro-Catholic, I should be violating no confidence in repeating it. It runs: I swear to support the constitution of the United States. I pledge myself as a Catholic citizen and Knight of Columbus to enlighten myself fully upon my duties as a citizen and to conscientiously perform such duties entirely in the interest of my country and regardless of all personal consequences. I pledge myself to do all in my power to preserve the integrity and purity of the ballot, and to promote reverence and respect for law and order. I promise to practise my religion openly and without ostentation and to so conduct myself in public affairs and in the exercise of public virtue as to reflect nothing but credit upon our Holy Church, to the end that she may flourish and our country prosper to the greater honor and glory of God.’”

Robert’s brain whirled. He felt himself growing angry. His fists involuntarily clenched and he bit his lips. Lies, lies, lies. It had been nothing but lies ever since he had joined the Tribe. Lies against the Negro, lies against the Catholic, lies against the Jew. When anything untruthful or mistaken or illogical had been pointed out, the leaders had always disclaimed responsibility. They had always disclaimed responsibility for violence, yet wherever the Tribe flourished the strongest violence and these damnable lies were most numerous.

“Show him the official Knights of Columbus ritual,” McCall was saying, and, although Robert protested that it was not necessary, Father Callahan procured the volume, opened it at the proper page and showed it to him.

“There’s some nonsense about the prediction of Abraham Lincoln that some day there would be a clash between Rome and this country, something about seeing a cloud coming from Rome which forebode war.”

“Please don’t——” began Robert.

“You must. Let him look through your complete works of Lincoln.”

In spite of his protests the ponderous volumes were pulled out of their shelves and laid on the table.

“This is supposed to contain everything Lincoln ever wrote or said,” McCall turned to the index volume. “Now look for Catholic. Now try Rome. Now try Pope. Now try Papacy.”

Robert looked. There was nothing. There were two short letters in which Lincoln repudiated rumors that he belonged to the Know Nothing party. Nothing about Rome or the Pope or Catholicism.

“If you can find any such statement by Lincoln in any authenticated work in the Chicago Public Library, in any library, or in any original document, I’ll believe you,” said McCall.

“No, that’s unnecessary,” said Robert. “It’s a standard work. It would be of such tremendous importance, any statement like that, that it would undoubtedly appear in any standard collection of letters and addresses. It would be of such importance that it would appear in our histories. No, you’re right, Bill.” There was a lump in his throat. “Can you forgive me? I am——”

“No, you won’t resign yet,” said McCall, “there are certain lies about the Jews. Father Callahan could probably answer most of them, I could answer some, but I am going to take you to Levin’s. Levin’s father is a rabbi.”

“No,” said Robert, “it’s not necessary.”

“Yes, you’re going.”

“Of course, there is one thing,” broke in the priest with a smile, “there is no one body that represents the Jews as the Holy See represents Catholicism. There are Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist Jews, orthodox and reformed, German and Russian and Polish and Hungarian and English. There is no one conference that all the rabbis attend. In other words, the Jews are not a unit as the Catholics are. I could point out what the Baltimore council said, and that meant the official attitude of the Catholic church. There is no such official office of the Jews. There is no Jewish pope, in other words, who could state the position of all Jews about anything. Take the ridiculous charge that they plan the overthrow of all governments. Every Jew would deny it, but there is no central Jewish authority that you could consult.”

“That’s all right, father,” said McCall. “Levin’s father is one of the orthodox rabbis. He still wears a skull cap. He still keeps the old dietary rules. He is a Zionist. He belongs to a lodge that represents the most Jewish of the Jews of Chicago. If he can’t tell you what Jews are thinking about and what their ideas and ideals are, nobody else can.”

The priest shook hands with them, made a passing allusion to the joy that attends the recovery of one sheep that has strayed from the fold, and invited them to come again.

XXXV

Robert wondered what sort of home Levin would live in. Outside of Levin himself, in fact, his dealings with Jews had been extremely limited. He had met a few in his classes at Harvard, where they appeared perhaps a little more studious, more eager to acquire education, than the average students, but he had developed no friendships among them.

They took a west-side elevated and passed a district thick with stores and traffic. The rabbi’s home, however, was on the second floor of a three-story apartment building, facing a park, a rather peaceful retreat from the shopping district a few blocks away.

The home was like any of a dozen apartments Robert had seen in New York and Chicago—harmonious mahogany furniture, oriental rugs, good pictures, a baby grand piano, floor lamps. Except for a polished brass candelabra, with seven candle sticks, that stood on the table near the window, a hammered brass Russian samovar and a prominence of other hammered brass objects, there was nothing to set it off as distinctly Jewish. Oh yes, in the tall book shelves that rose from either side of the fireplace there were many old books with Hebrew letters stamped on them.

A rather plump schoolgirl, the doctor’s sister, had opened the door and ushered them through the reception hall into the living room.

“Oh, Mr. McCall, Jack’s expecting you,” she said. “Won’t you come in? Papa is just advising someone.”

She excused herself to summon her brother. Dr. Levin’s first name was Jacob, but his sister, Estelle, had given him the more American name of Jack.

Robert saw an elderly gentleman, with a black skull cap and long white beard, evidently the rabbi himself, talking animatedly with a little black-bearded fellow, who kept nodding his head. The taller man looked something like Jack, like Jack in a patriarchal beard and with little foreign mannerisms. They were talking in some foreign jargon.

“Nu, you send him to me and I will advise him as though he was my own son.”

The other man stopped nodding his head and began to shake it slowly from side to side.

“It will be for you a great blessing.” A few more words and he left.

Jack came in—it was surprising how dressing carefully and going clean-shaven modernized one’s appearance. Their features were very similar, yet the elder Levin had a patriarchal, almost oriental, appearance. Jack introduced Robert.

“Ah, yes, that is the Hamilton my son has been telling me about.” He spoke with a foreign, sing-song, balanced intonation and a slight lisp. He divided each word into its syllables, as though he were reading slowly out loud.

“Nu, sit down, Mr. Hamilton. You are just in time for supper. It’s too bad you couldn’t come Friday.”

Hamilton murmured something about not knowing it was so late.

“It is a great blessing,” remarked the rabbi, “to have a guest, so you must stay on my account.”

Mrs. Levin, short, plump and brown-eyed, with a brown wig, entered the room.

“Ah, we hear from you by Jackie a whole lot,” she said.

The doctor grinned good-naturedly, evident amused at the quaint old-world accent and manners of his parents.

“Now, you want I should tell you about the Jew,” said the rabbi, stroking his beard. “But take a seat first. The trouble is you come here for an hour or two hours and expect to learn everything about the Jews, like you learn a recipe for a sponge cake. You must study and read.”

Robert glanced at McCall. The latter had evidently prepared Rabbi Levin and Father Callahan, had probably phoned them before coming to his room. It was a conspiracy, he could see, for his own good.

“Nu, what do you want to know? There is no mysticism in Judaism. It is an open book. There it is, everything.” He pointed to a Bible.

“But he wants to know something about the Jews that will offset this Trick Track Tribe propaganda.”

“What, Trick Track Tribe?” The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Craziness. Foolishness. It can’t last. Mr. Hamilton, can a bad thing, an untrue thing, last? No? Well, then, how can the Tribe live? What do they say? Ask me any questions and I will try to answer them for you as best I can.”

“Mr. Levin,” said McCall, “the Tribe accuses the Jews of planning to overthrow all the Gentile governments of the world through the Third Internationale. Isn’t that the argument, Hamilton?” Robert nodded.

“Nu, they do us credit. They flatter us,” said the rabbi. “How can it be that the Jews, who are only about three per cent of the population, should control the whole world? Is it sense?” He shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head to one side. “Jews? What Jews? You talk as if Jews was a little society, like a lodge. There are American Jews and Russian Jews, German Jews and French Jews, Republican Jews and Democratic Jews, radical Jews and conservative Jews. It’s not like they have a pope to tell them what they shall do.”

“But how do the orthodox Jews feel about internationalism?”

“Ah, the orthodox Jews. They are the Zionists. They are always dreaming that they shall get back to Palestine. So how can they be internationalists? They are nationalists, they want that even the Jews should have their own nation, so how can they be both nationalists and internationalists at the same time?”

“But isn’t Trotsky a Jew and most of the Bolshevik leaders?”

“Trotsky is no longer a Jew. He has been, what you call it in the Catholic Church, excommunicated from the Jewish Synagogue. His parents are Jews, good Jews, and they mourn him like he was a dead one. There can be no religious Jews among the Bolsheviks, but there are some Jews, by birth we admit it—who are leaders. Nu, Lenine is a Gentile. So what does that show? But most of the leaders are not Jews. It is true that there are more leaders among them in proportion to their population. But that is because most of the Jews in Russia live in the big cities where the Bolshevik movement started. And the Jews are better educated than the average Russian. So they are naturally more highly represented in the offices. Trotsky is the only great Jewish leader—the head of the army. But Lenine comes from the nobility and many of the Russian radicals are from the old nobility. But you can’t say that the Russian nobility is radical, can you? But there are no Jews in the tchaika, which is responsible for the reign of terror. They are all Letts. The Jews are mostly translaters, because they are educated to speak several tongues, teachers, minor officials. But they are simply officials, appointed by the government, and they would hold the same jobs should it be a Kerensky again at the head. It’s just like the communists have placed the old Czarist generals at the head of the different army corps. What should they do? They have to fight for the government or they get killed. But the generals under Czar Nicholas who are now leading the Red armies, are they also Bolsheviks? No, a religious Jew or a Zionist, whether he observes all the religion or not, he cannot be an internationalist.”

“How about the protocols of the Elders of Zion?” asked McCall.

“What’s that?” asked Robert.

“That’s the book that’s supposed to be the basis of the accusation that the Jews have a world-wide plot against all governments.”

“Have you read it?” asked Rabbi Levin.

“No.”

“Then it is hard to speak about it. If you read it you would see right away that it was a forgery. In the first place, Elders of Zion. You see, the people who wrote it, forgot that there is no such a thing as a Jewish central organization, like, say, the Holy See for the Catholics. There is no such thing as the Elders of Zion. It couldn’t be, because there is no such thing as Zion, that is a united Jewish people politically. The Elders of Zion are supposed to be some official body meeting in connection with the first Zionist convention. But the Zionist convention was open, so that all reporters could come there, so how is it no one should know of such a plot? Of course, if the Zionists would have wanted no governments they would not spend their time and money and risk their lives now in settling Palestine for a government of the Jews. But why should I tell you it is a forgery? You know what it is, historical method?”

Robert had not studied it, but he knew what it was from college. Students majoring in history and graduate students took it.

“Well, you know, you can tell by examining documents whether they are true or fakes. It’s wrong here. It’s wrong there. A contradiction. You know how it is. Well, a much better man than I, and a Gentile, has called it a forgery. Who is that? You should know, the head from the greatest detective force in the world, Scotland Yard, Sir Basil Thompson.”

Robert laughed. “Well, that’s proof enough for me.”

At the table there were queer dishes. There was herring for an appetiser, a cold soup, which they called borsht, which was red, tasted of beets and was eaten with cream. Appetizing envelopes of dough filled with cheese and eaten with sour cream, called blinches. Strudel, a sort of crisp tart filled with prunes.

“It’s the most delicious food I’ve eaten since I left Paris,” laughed Robert. Mrs. Levin beamed her pleasure.

Every one was talking at once. Explaining this and that. The significance of the candelabra. Why the rabbi wore a skull cap. Why little mazzuzas, painted wooden things, hung at the doors. Explaining the food. The rabbi, like his son, had a habit of skipping from one subject to another—literature, art, music, sociology, anthropology. Robert had always had an idea that Jewish learning was confined to the Talmud, mysterious books of ancient and medieval lore. But he found the rabbi’s knowledge was quite as modern as the most enlightened cosmopolite might wish.

“Most of these customs are simply customs,” said the Rabbi. “Why do you take off your cap to a lady? Custom. For the same reason I wear a hat. The simpler people make up explanations. See that mazzuza hanging at the door? It contains a little bit of holy scrip. Superstitious people think it drives away the devils. Other people hang it up because they think it makes a pretty curio. Like you might have a Buddhist idol, without believing in it, or a horseshoe. Some customs are nice customs. There is sentiment in back of them. So I stick to ’em. My children, nu, they are Americans. They grow away from it.”

McCall tried to turn the conversation back to the Tribe, while Robert protested that he had been convinced. To appease McCall, the rabbi had showed them the constitution of the Sons of Israel and assured them that the oaths were as innocent as that of the real fourth degree of the Knights of Columbus. The Tribe had accused the Sons of Israel of attempting to carry out the “international revolution.”

“Even if everything the Tribe says about everybody—Jews, Catholics, Negroes, foreigners—was absolutely true, still it would be wrong,” said the rabbi. “Why? Because either your Tribe is an invisible government, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, you are getting money under false pretenses, because you claim it is. And if it is an invisible government, they are transferring the government from its proper offices and should be arrested for the same reason that the communists were arrested when they also tried to set up an invisible government. Invisible government, no matter for what purposes, has no place here.”

At the end of the meal, they returned to the living room, where Estelle, upon the insistence of her parents, played surprisingly well, some selections from Rimsky-Korsakov. The rabbi kept time with his head, shaking it rhythmically from side to side.

“When she plays I can just hear the shepherds blowing on their pipes,” he said.

But McCall insisted on thrashing out the Jewish question still further.

“Well,” said Hamilton at length. “Of course those charges are all false. I don’t think any sane person is afraid that a handful of Jews, especially disorganized as they are, could ever gain control of the world. That’s preposterous. The real objection to him is that he is different, a foreigner, an inferior element. Not that I believe it, but—”

Dr. Levin, who had allowed his father to carry out the bulk of the argument, could keep back no longer, and he took up the challenge.

“I am not going to point out the qualities of the Hebrew race, Hamilton, because, it is not for qualities or lack of qualities that a mob hates. And that’s what your Tribe is. It is the same sort of a mob that forms the secret society of the savage tribes of dark Africa. There they kill a man not because he is better or worse than they are, but because he is alien. Among the savages of the Amazon, it is enough that a man has wandered from his tribe six months for him to be murdered for his alienism.

“You know that your very religion is Jewish, and that the first Christian martyrs, whom you reverence, were all Jews or converts to Judaism. You know that Jews have always contributed more than their proportion of the distinguished men of every nation in which they have lived. But distinction in talent or in wealth only fans the mob’s hate. It was so in Spain during the Inquisition, where the Jews had married into the proudest Spanish families and occupied the highest positions, and it is so here today. The mob which sneers at the poor man because he is poor, howls for the blood of the rich man because he is rich. And it is among those same bigots that the conflicting cries arise against the Jewish banker and the Jewish peddler.

“It is possible that you yourself carry the taint of Jewish blood in your veins, for wherever the Jews have lived, they have intermarried. They have both converted and been converted. In the greater cities of Europe from 10 to 50 per cent of all Jews intermarry. The one thing that distinguishes the Jew from the other modern races is his retention of the old faith. It is his faith alone that makes him unwelcome.

“You call the Jew an alien, but if he is an alien then every inhabitant of America excepting the red Indian is an alien. The first Jews came to America with Christopher Columbus, and there is even evidence that Columbus himself was a Jew by birth, although a Catholic by religion. Jews fought with the Dutch against the Swedes in New Amsterdam, with Washington in the French and Indian war, and once more with Washington in the war that won freedom for the colonies. A Jew helped Robert Morris finance the Revolution and it was another Jew who financed the Union at the most critical point of the Civil War. A Jew prevented the delivery of two armored ships to the Confederate states which would probably have broken the blockade and won the Civil War for the South. But, of course, you’re a Southerner. In your own state, Georgia, the oldest settlers are descendants of Jews.

“But there is no use reasoning with a Tribesman. He is one of a crowd, and a crowd lacks reason. Get your crowd swayed by the spirit and it matters not what reason you give it for its hatred—difference of race, of belief, of appearance. Tell the crowd that being black is wrong, or being a Catholic, or being a Jew. It is but enough to point out that the objects of its wrath are different from it. Show it an ideal like Anglo-Saxonism. It will not stop to reflect that the greatest Anglo-Saxon nation in the world, Great Britain, is a mixture of primitive Briton, Celt, Teuton, Norman, Jew, of Catholic and Protestant. In the name of Anglo-Saxonism it will strike blindly against the elements of its own population, whose very diversity made the greatest Anglo-Saxon nation what it is.

“During the World War it was necessary to organize this nation into a huge crowd, instilled with the single idea of patriotism. Then it was a matter of self-defense, and in the same way you can organize other crowds and inspire them to the highest deeds. The old Ku Klux Klan was undoubtedly actuated by the highest of ideals. But it broke away from its leaders and became a mob. It became an evil graver to the law and order of the nation which it started to protect than the forces which it combatted. That is exactly what will happen to the Trick Track Tribe. That is exactly what is happening to it today. Men and women are being boycotted, banished from their homes, tarred and feathered, flogged and murdered. Officially it may not be the work of the Trick Track Tribe. Officials may disclaim responsibility. But they cannot disclaim responsibility for forming the mob and then directly or indirectly inciting it. Griffith may be the wisest of men, Lister the noblest and most sincere, but they can no more control the mob of their formation, than could the wise and sincere men who formed the Ku Klux Klan stop its reign of terrorism. That took a greater crowd, actuated by a greater ideal.

“The Trick Track Tribe has already shown a record of atrocities wherever it has formed a considerable element of the population. If its leaders have directed them, the Tribe already stands convicted. If its leaders have not directed them, the Tribe already confesses that the mob has broken out of its control. But just as the federal government, backed by aroused public opinion, was able to overthrow the old Klan, so will the government, once more representing aroused public opinion, overthrow the present Tribe.”

“You’re right,” cried Robert. “You are absolutely right. Perhaps you didn’t know it. I’m a member of the Tribe myself—but I won’t be anymore.”

No one showed surprise.

“We knew it all the time,” said Rabbi Levin. “Only we don’t believe in using the same tactics as the Tribe. We wanted to convince you.”

“You, you—” Robert was bewildered. It seemed incomprehensible.

“Sure,” said the rabbi. “See, isn’t it better we should sit down at the table and eat borsht and blinches and talk it over like men with sense, instead of we should kidnap you with white masks like hoodlums and try to convince you with a bath of tar and feathers, which never convinces anyway? Wouldn’t it be better, if the Tribe really had something against the Catholics or the Jews, they should bring it out—nice, quiet, like gentlemen—in the open? If they told the Catholic priests and the Jewish rabbis anything they know bad about them, wouldn’t the Catholics and the Jews themselves be the first ones to stop it? Or couldn’t they bring it up in a court if they were traitors to their country, and get the services from the department of justice and maybe deport them like it was the anarchists?”

“Yes, Mr. Levin, that’s the American way to settle things, in the open!”

“And it’s also the Jewish way,” said Levin.

“And the Catholic.”

“And it’s the Protestant,” said Hamilton. “If it wasn’t for my oath I’d bring the whole thing out in the open!”

“What oath?” asked Dr. Levin.

“My oath to the Tribe.”

“Don’t you remember that other oath we all took—McCall, a Catholic; you, a Protestant, and I, a Jew?”

“What oath?”

“The oath to protect our country—the oath we all took when we got our commissions in the army. Are you, in letting this un-American Tribe hatred spread, living up to that?”

“God, no!”

Robert rose.

“I’m going to hand in my resignation now!”

“It’s eight o’clock now. Wait until morning,” urged Levin.

“No, I won’t wait another minute.”

But the office of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau, where Freeman sometimes worked at night, was locked and Robert, after sending a telegram to Griffith, went to his room.

XXXVI

The rioting begun on Sunday fanned into a race struggle all the smoldering passions and hatreds that the Armistice had once suppressed. White men of fifty different creeds, nationalities and politics, who had begun by hating the unreasoning hatred of the Hun for the un-Teutonic, and who had grown intolerant of the arrogant intolerance of the blond beast, suddenly flared into fury against the blacks.

Blacks had disappeared from the streets except in their own belt, around which howled and stormed the white mob. This was no case of punishing the blacks who precipitated the first attack on the beach, but of punishing all blacks. The cry was not “Get the nigger!” but “Get the niggers!” Difference of color, blackness, was the sole object of the crowd’s fury.

On their side, the blacks fought against whiteness. They had begun by stoning, not the white man who had thrown the first stone, but all the whites upon whom they could lay their black hands. In gangs they had waylaid and assaulted any one they met, regardless of age and of sex, because he was white. The black child who had been so cruelly murdered had become a symbol to them of all the suffering of the colored at the hands of the white. All that they had undergone under the lash and the knife in the Congo—the fruitful colony of gallant Belgium—all that they had borne in slave marts, on cotton plantations, in dismal swamps, at the whipping-post, on the faggot pile—all the concentrated injustice of the ages, all the intolerance of bleeding centuries, lay in the sacrifice of this beloved pickaninny. Out of injustice and tolerance had sprung an answering injustice and intolerance. And now in answer to it the white mob screamed without.

Gangs of whites and blacks filled the streets, attacked with rocks, bricks, knives and bullets. Snipers picked off their foe from the top windows of brick tenements. Motor trucks, manned by armed bands, plunged through the crowded streets, showering bullets. Firebrands burned a hundred buildings and attempted to destroy the entire Negro district. Three thousand men, women and children were rendered homeless. By Monday night twenty-five blacks and whites had sobbed out their lives in the battle of color, their bodies lay on the marble slabs of the public morgue—a sacrifice to the God of Intolerance.

In Tuesday’s paper Robert read about the rioting and heard unconfirmed details, horrible exaggerations, from the lips of excited men who stood around the lobby. Robert felt glad that he no longer belonged to the Tribe. Though the riots were no part of the Tribe’s work, still they showed Robert the danger of organizing on the basis of hatred. In a way he had known this all the time, but now his talks with Father Callahan, with McCall and the Levins had indelibly impressed it upon him. He felt himself nearer to his mental state of mind immediately after the termination of the War—when the American ideal of forbearance, indulgence, charity, had electrified a world—than he had ever been since. Democracy. Yes, democracy, that was it.

Robert decided to wait until he received a reply to his telegram of resignation before notifying Freeman, grew impatient as the morning wore on and finally determined to rid himself of his impatience by walking. It was hot and choking and sooty—not at all the Chicago of which he had dreamed when he was in Georgia. It was impossible to get used to Chicago. It was hot, but not like Corinth. It was hard to breathe. On Michigan avenue, however, in spite of the smoke from the lines of trains that ran along the shore, one could at least see Lake Michigan, stretching calmly out to the horizon in the golden sunlight, bearing proud white steamers and occasional sails—and the only restful thing, it seemed, in the whole feverish metropolis. And so he walked, past the Art Institute, to the north where workingmen high above were placing blocks of dazzling white terra cotta on a tall tower that rose just beyond the bridge at a curve in the boulevard.

He wondered how it would feel to stand perched there high above the city—with its swarming traffic, its noise and soot, its passions and hatreds—God peering down on the world he had fashioned. He looked at his watch—it was almost eleven—and decided to return to his hotel.

McCall was waiting for him.

“I noticed a couple of telegrams in your box,” he said.

“A couple?” Robert wondered why there should be two. He opened the first. It was from Griffith, a mixture of threat and Tribal mystery. He could imagine Griffith grinning while he wrote it, wracking his brain to coin something staggering, and satisfied with his work. It read:

“We know what we are doing. Remember your oath. Death to the faithless is necessary to preserve faith in the deathless.”

The second telegram was briefer:

“Have learned all. Am returning ring. Margaret.”

Margaret! She, too, had turned against him. He remembered her outburst of anger at home, when he had discussed resigning from the Tribe. But how had she learned of his resignation? Who—? Ah! Robert had an intuition. Pinkney. Pinkney, of course. Pinkney, who had wanted Margaret all the time. Pinkney, who had induced him to join the Tribe and undertake the organization of the middle West. He could see it all. Pinkney, with his fresh, pink cheeks, bursting into the Forsythe home, with the announcement that Hamilton had turned traitor to the South, to one hundred per cent Americanism, to the Constitution, to the sanctity of the home, to the dozen other glittering formulae that masked the crude program of racial and religious persecution. Robert felt anger, anger against Margaret, but principally against Pinkney—and relief.

He handed the telegrams to McCall, one by one.

“You may use the first one,” he said.

“I wouldn’t let that worry you. They’ll probably send you a few notes of warning, with pictures of skulls and cross bones. There’s a story in The Times this morning about—” His eyes took in the second telegram.

“Why—why, old man, this is tough. Have you quarreled?”

Robert told him of Margaret’s fanatic enthusiasm for the Tribe, especially its mission of protecting the home. As he did so, he felt the blow to his pride. He was glad of it—yet to be jilted!

“Protecting the home, eh!” exploded McCall. “Why more than half the men drafted from the South had the clap. Oh, I beg your pardon, Ham. I forgot for a moment. Oh, well, we’re almost as bad here. Probably worse in Chicago. But at least we don’t go round posing as home protectors.”

“Oh, well,” said Robert, with a little shrug of the shoulders, “I don’t know. I don’t feel crushed, but it—”

His thoughts somehow jumped to Dorothy and his heart beat faster.

“Crushed!” McCall slapped him on the back. “That’s the luckiest thing in the world for you. Why, you’re still young. You know, you’ll be a long time married. I thought that I was the only sensible person left.”

“What do you mean—only sensible person?”

“You know what I told you about Levin and Miss Meadows.”

“Levin. Dorothy!”

“Sure, at the Press Club, that first day. No, by George, I was called away before I had a chance. You know they met in France. It’s one of those war romances. He a doctor and she a nurse in the same hospital. Of course, it’s not a regular engagement. His father is orthodox and—”

McCall’s voice went on. Robert heard it in snatches. He remembered Dorothy speaking about religious tolerance, about intermarriage. No, that would make no difference with her. And Levin, too. His mouth felt dry. He was talking at random? “Yes—Splendid girl—Beautiful—Nice chap—”

They drifted down to Washington street and into a little restaurant. Robert noticed the name—Ye Pot and Kettle—painted under a picture of a large, old-fashioned pot, on the window.

“Thought it would be a little quieter here,” McCall was saying.

“Yes.” He looked at the menu. A waitress was proclaiming the merits of the day’s specialties. He ordered something. He was conscious of a buzz of voices and the sound of plates and cutlery.

“What’s the matter? You look pale.” McCall leaned forward, his face anxious. “Aren’t you hungry? Better take some coffee. It’ll do you good.”

“No, I’m not very hungry,” he said, but sipped the coffee. “I’m going to the office.”

“It’s only twelve-thirty.”

“I’ll walk around a while.”

They walked slowly around the grim, gray city hall.

Robert shook off his weariness. Outside the entrance to the office building they paused. McCall lit a cigarette.

“I’ve got to interview some one at the Palmer House,” he said, throwing away the match. “Want a pill? Meet me there as soon as you’re through. There’s some sort of a conference going on.”

“All right. In the lobby.”

The outer office of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau was empty—the office force was still at lunch—but Freeman, in his shirt sleeves, was bending over his desk in his private sanctum. Robert entered.

“I’ve resigned—” he began.

Freeman stood up, a sneer on his face.

“Yes, I got a telegram, telling me you’d quit. Well, there was another fellow who also quit.” He shoved over the morning paper. One of the stories on the second page was marked. It told of a former Grand Bogey of the Tribe who had committed suicide after receiving threatening letters. As Robert read, he could hear Freeman breathing and felt that he was pulling himself together. He looked up.

“Well—”

“You damned coward, quitting now because you’re afraid of a few coons!”

“What!” Robert bit his lips and felt the muscles of his arms and legs suddenly tighten.

“You heard me! You didn’t resign before. You waited until this nigger trouble began and then you quit. I said you were a damned coward!”

Robert took a step forward. Freeman’s huge fists were clenched. He knew that he was white and trembling.

“You take that back!”

Freeman took a single step to one side, so that the desk no longer stood between them. His lips were frozen in a sneer. The corners of his eye-lids were drawn down. He looked straight, unflinchingly into Robert’s eyes.

Robert felt the blood pounding in his temples and rushing from his heart through his limbs, and with a sudden movement, that was almost a leap, he drove his right fist with all his strength at Freeman’s chin. The latter skilfully threw his left forearm across his face and slightly ducked, slightly tilted his head to one side. Robert’s fist struck his opponent’s forearm and the top of his skull, and a sharp pain shivered through his wrist.

“Ah.” Freeman’s teeth were bared. He was terribly cool. He collected himself and sprang forward. Robert was thinking of his chest. The blow caught him high on the side of the head and sent him backward into the door, which crashed shut. Robert covered. His right hand was useless. His chest! His face and solar plexus had to be protected. It was impossible to protect all of them and still fight. He decided to wait, head down, forearms forming a shield. He saw an opening and jabbed suddenly with his left. Freeman’s head snapped back and a stream of blood issued from the corner of his mouth. Robert fiercely lashed out again at the same spot and Freeman fell blindly into a clinch. His weight was forcing Robert slowly backward toward the door. He tried to free himself. Freeman held on desperately and tried to backheel him.

Slowly something that he had learned came into Robert’s mind. Something his wrestling instructor had told him at Harvard. “If you ever get into a free-for-all—” What was it? His head was whirling. He was being pressed back. If he could only use his right arm. Freeman suddenly backed off and in that instant Robert remembered. He drove the heel of his left hand full at Freeman’s chin, the fingers spread out across his face. Freeman straightened up and threw up his hands. Like a flash Robert had fallen on one knee, tackled his adversary about the ankles, thrown him over his shoulder like a sack of wheat, staggered about in a circle for a few steps and—dropped him. Freeman struck the floor on the back of his head with a crash and lay stunned for a second. Robert staggered back against the wall. Freeman had backheeled him. It was fair. His right hand was helpless. He saw Freeman rise slowly, shake his head and lunge heavily forward. Robert grinned. He ducked under the outstretched arm and struck straight out at the pit of his stomach with his left. Freeman collapsed and lay in a heap, his collar loosened, his tie twisted around his neck, his hair and face dripping with perspiration, the corner of his mouth swollen and streaked with red.

A voice outside in the hall: “What’s going on there!” Footsteps in the office. “Anybody there?” Silence. The footsteps retreating. Freeman raised his head. Robert bent down and pushed it back and sat astride his chest.

“Am I a coward?”

“Let up, you damned—”

Robert shoved his head back with his open hand.

“Am I a coward?”

Freeman gurgled. His face was red. Robert withdrew his hand.

“Am I—” His hand clutched forward.

“No.”

“Am I a coward to quit a bunch of men who fight in the dark? Am I a coward when I know that I’ll be threatened with death for resigning?”

“No. Let me up.”

Freeman’s face was red. He was panting.

“Shake hands first and say we’re friends!”

“What?”

“Shake hands and say we’re friends!”

Freeman looked startled, as though he were talking to a mad man, but held up his hand.

“Now before I let you up.” He shifted his position forward a trifle and Freeman winced. “Before I let you up, listen to this: I quit because I learned that the Tribe’s stuff about the Jews and the Catholics is all bunk. I was a damn fool. But when I was shown, I did the square thing. I quit. Now you’re going to do exactly what I tell you. You’re going to see the same persons I saw. And if they convince you, you’re going to quit, too. Is that agreed?”

“Yes. Let me up for God’s sake. I’m choking.”

“First shake on it.”

They shook. Robert sprang to his feet and helped Freeman to his.

“I haven’t a damned thing against you, Freeman. In fact, I always liked you. There’s nothing personal about this, excepting you called me something that we don’t call friends where I come from.”

Together they brushed off Freeman’s trousers.

“The stenographer is back,” said Robert. “I’ll send her for collars and court plaster. Never mind, I’ll pay.”

Fifteen minutes later, washed, combed, in clean collars and with Freeman’s cut lip neatly concealed by plaster, they set out to find McCall.

XXXVII

McCall was walking impatiently back and forth in front of the hotel, smoking a cigarette, when Robert and Freeman arrived.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Oh, we’ve met before. Trick Track Tribe. I mean Dearborn Publicity Bureau.”

Freeman grinned sheepishly.

“Yes, we’ve met.”

Robert’s attention was diverted by the appearance of a taxi, driving up to the curb. The door opened and a black man stepped out. A black man!

“There’s Williams!” cried Robert.

“Who?”

“Williams. You know, Mac, the hospital—France.”

It was Williams and suddenly, somehow, Robert found himself shaking his hand—the first time in his life that he had ever grasped the hand of any colored man, except George, the chauffeur, and Sam, the gardener.

“You’ve changed.” The colored man was smiling.

“Yes, I’ve got a new view of things. I—I’ve read your articles in The Torch and I want to tell you that I agree with your stand against the Trick Track Tribe. It must be fought through education, not by stirring up a new and stronger prejudice against it, even if we are stronger.”

Williams was pleased. He paid off the driver and explained that he was attending a meeting of state officials, of representative white and black citizens to discuss the race riots.

The taxi pulled away. And suddenly Williams, Ph.D., Harvard, wearer of the Croix de Guerre and editor of The Torch, stood revealed to the white world. The hated color had suddenly reappeared.

“Yeh, look at the nigger! Skunk! Skunk!” the shrill voice of an office boy, a pink-cheeked lad of perhaps thirteen, cried out, as he darted across the crowded street. A stone struck the black man on the arm. Robert saw what was coming. The world which had drifted by a moment before had suddenly become electrified. “Nigger! Get the coon! Get the damn murderer! Nigger! Nigger!” A hundred angry voices, cursing.

A broker’s clerk came yelling. A bank teller followed. Two law students. Salesmen. Shop managers. Men. Boys. Women. Men in work shirts. Men in jazz ties. Men in silk shirts. Black! Black! Black! Black raged through their hearts. They screamed and whooped and ran forward with faces distorted and arms raised.

“Quick, the door!”

Robert started toward the entrance. A white man barred the way. Robert pulled him to one side. The man raised his arm, but Freeman and McCall had sprung forward and were holding him helpless. The black man leaped through the doorway and to safety. McCall and Freeman ran after him, for to aid a Negro then was a crime in the eyes of the mob which hated blackness.

Robert started to follow. Something struck him on the forehead. The cries of the mob and the sound of their footsteps, a man’s laughter, the traffic clangs and noises, the far-off whistle of a patrolman, whirled about him. The world turned red and went spinning round and round—then black, in circles, closing, closing. A confused roar, fainter and ever fainter in his ears. A sensation of being carried, of floating, finally of resting.

Somewhere Robert presently was aware of a light, a flame that was at the same time himself. The flame grew outward and shattered into other flames. The light expanded, throbbing. He was running forward through a grotesquely flaring night, with lights and rockets that screamed overhead and exaggerated every irregularity of the ground, that sent ghastly shadows staggering across the field.

No. He was running down a football field with a leather ball tucked under his arm, a smell of earth and blood and leather in his nostrils and the roar of voices in his ears. No. He tried to remember and found that he was conscious. His eyes fluttered open. Eyes strangely familiar were resting on them.

“Where am I? What’s happened?”

Soft hands were patting him. He felt the pressure of a bandage around his head and a dull pain. He saw a doctor and a woman bending over him. He knew that he was in a hospital. He heard a familiar voice, the woman’s voice, consoling him.

“Robert, Robert, you’re all right now?”

There was a hum of voices. There were tears in her brown eyes. Oh, Dorothy! His heart was racing. Dorothy. No. Yes, it was Dorothy. Dorothy of the hospital. Dorothy who had wept once before, in Paris. Dorothy who had kissed him then. Yes. His head was clear. He raised himself to a sitting position.

She was holding his hand. His own eyes were wet.

“Why? Why?—”

“Robert, Robert.” She was bending over him. Her hair was brushing against his face. He felt a glow of warmth. Then her lips against his. Her eyes were closed. He closed his own.

“Dorothy.” His head was clear. He remembered everything. “But why are you here?”

“I heard you had been hurt. I thought—I thought it was serious. But it isn’t. I’m so glad,” she sobbed.

“But why did you come?”

“Because—because—” She looked full into his eyes and he could see little sparks of light dancing in them. “I love you, Robert.”

His heart gave a bound.

“But—” He remembered. Oh, yes, McCall. “But I thought that Jack Levin—”

“No.” She shook her head. “We are of different faiths. We—”

“But—you told me—your ideas—”

“No, we decided it was better not—”

“Because—”

“Because we are of different faiths—and because—” Was she laughing or sobbing?—“because I loved you—yes, it was you—all the time.”

“Dorothy! and—”

“Yes, I knew it from the beginning.”

THE END

Transcriber’s Note:

Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These were left unchanged. Jargon, dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were not changed. Eleven misspelled words were corrected. Misplaced or missing punctuation was corrected.

Added missing “to” ... time to show that ...

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Table of Contents

- TAR AND FEATHERS
- FOREWORD
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- VIII
- IX
- X
- XI
- XII
- XIII
- XIV
- XV
- XVI
- XVII
- XVIII
- XIX
- XX
- XXI
- XXII
- XXIII
- XXIV
- XXV
- XXVI
- XXVII
- XXVIII
- XXIX
- XXX
- XXXI
- XXXII
- XXXIII
- XXXIV
- XXXV
- XXXVI
- XXXVII
- Transcriber’s Note:
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE