"Heard a fur-face speak last night," said Steve. "It"s a long story, mates, but it seems this is one rotten Government and everybody knows it but a few cops. If someone would only call off the cops and let the fur-faces run it we might have a regular country."
From the Square singing was now heard.
"Oh, boy!" murmured the tall private, dreamily; "am I glad I"m here?"
Stretching a long neck to peer toward the Square, he called in warm, urgent tones: "Oh, come on, you reds--come on, red!"
They came on. Out from the Square issued a valiant double line of marchers, men and women, their voices raised in the Internationale. At their head, bearing aloft a scarlet banner of protest, strode a commanding figure in corduroys, head up, his feet stepping a martial pace.
"I choose that general," said the tall private, and licked his lips.
"Not if I get him first," shouted Steve, and sprang from the walk into the roadway.
But ex-Private Cowan was ahead of them both. He had not waited for speech. A crowd from each side of the Avenue had surged into the roadway to greet the procession. The banner bearer was seen to hesitate, to lose step, but was urged from the rear by other banner bearers. He came on again. Once more he stepped martially. The Internationale swelled in volume. The crowd, instead of opening a way, condensed more solidly about the advance. There were jeers and shoving. The head of the line again wavered. Wilbur Cowan had jostled a way toward this leader. He lost no time in going into action. But the pushing crowd impaired his aim, and it was only a glancing blow that met the jaw of the corduroyed standard bearer.
The standard toppled forward from his grasp, and its late bearer turned quickly aside. As he turned Wilbur Cowan reached forward to close a hand about the corduroy collar. Then he pulled. The standard bearer came back easily to a sitting posture on the asphalt. The crowd was close in, noisily depriving other bearers of their standards. The Internationale had become blurred and discordant, like a bad phonograph record. The parade still came to break and flow about the obstruction.
Wilbur Cowan jerked his prize up and whirled him about. He contemplated further atrocities. But the pallid face of his brother was now revealed to him.
"Look out there!" he warned the crowd, and a way was opened.
He drew back on the corduroy collar, then sent it forward with a mighty shove. His captive shot through the opening, fell again to the pavement, but was up and off before those nearest him could devise further entertainment. Among other accomplishments Merle had been noted in college for his swiftness of foot. He ran well, heading for the north, skillfully avoiding those on the outskirts of the crowd who would have tackled him. Wilbur Cowan watched him out of sight, beyond the area of combat. Then he worked his own way from it and stood to watch the further disintegration of the now leaderless parade.
The tumult died, the crowd melted away. Policemen became officious. From areaways up and down the Avenue forms emerged furtively, walked discreetly to corners and skurried down side streets. Here and there a crimson banner flecked the asphalt. Steve and the tall private issued from the last scrimmage, breathing hard.
"Nothing to it!" said the tall private. "Only I skun my knuckles."
"I was aimin" a wallop at that general," complained Steve, "but something blew him right out of my hand. Come on up to Madison Avenoo. I heard they was goin" to save America up there, too."
"Can"t," said Wilbur. "Got to see a man."
"Well, so long, Buck!"
He waved to them as they joined the northward moving crowd.
"Gee, gosh!" he said.
"No, sir; Mr. Whipple hasn"t come in yet. He just sent word he wouldn"t be back at all to-night," said the spectacled hall boy. But his manner was so little ingenuous that once again the hand of Wilbur Cowan closed itself eloquently about the collar of a jacket.
"Get into that elevator and let me out at his floor."
"You let me alone!" said the hall boy. "I was going to."
He knocked a third time before he could hear a faint call. He opened the door. Beyond a dim entrance hall the light fell upon his brother seated at a desk, frowning intently at work before him. The visible half of him was no longer in corduroy. It was incased in a smoking jacket of velvet, and his neck was conventionally clad in collar and cravat. The latter had been hastily tied.
"Why, Wilbur, old man!" cried Merle in pleased surprise. He half rose from the desk, revealing that below the waist he was still corduroy or proletarian. Along his left jaw was a contusion as from a glancing blow.
He was still breathing harder than most men do who spend quiet evenings at desks.
Wilbur advanced into the room, but paused before reaching the desk. It was an invitingly furnished room of cushioned couches, paintings, tapestries, soft chairs, warmly toned rugs. The desk at which Merle toiled was ornate and shining. Ex-Private Cowan felt a sudden revulsion.
He was back, knee-deep in trench bilge, tortured in all his being, looking at death from behind a sandbag. Vividly he recalled why he had endured that torture.
"You"re all out of condition," he announced in even tones to Merle. "A little sprint like that shouldn"t get your wind."
Merle"s look of sunny welcome faded to one of chagrin. He fell back in his chair. He was annoyed.
"You saw that disgraceful outbreak, then?"
"I was in luck to-night."
"Did you see that drunken rowdy strike at me, and then try to get me down where he and those other brutes could kick me?"
Wilbur"s stare was cool. He was feeling the icy muck about his numbed legs.
"I was the one that struck at you. Too many elbows in the way and I flubbed it." He noted his brother start and stiffen in his chair. "And I didn"t try to get you down. When I saw it was you I got you up and shot you out where you could run--if you wanted to. And I wasn"t drunk, and I"m not a rowdy."
Merle gazed with horror upon the apparently uncontrite fratricide. Twice he essayed to speak before he found the words.
"Do you think that was a brave thing to do?"
"No--but useful. I"ve been brave a lot of times where it didn"t do as much good as that."
"Useful!" breathed Merle, scathingly. "Useful to brutalize a lot of brave souls who merely sought--" he broke off with a new sense of outrage. "And not a policeman there to do his duty!" he finished resentfully.
Wilbur Cowan sat in a carven chair near a corner of the beautiful desk, hitching it forward to rest his arms on the desk"s top. He was newly appraising this white-faced brother.
"Whining!" he suddenly snapped. "Get up and boast that you"re outlaws, going to keel the Government off its pins. Then you get the gaff, and the first thing you do is whine for help from that same Government! You say it"s rotten, but you expect it to watch over you while you knock it down. If you"re going to be an outlaw, take an outlaw"s chance. Don"t squeal when you get caught. You say the rules are rotten, then you fall back on them. What kind of sportsmanship is that?"
Wearily but with a tolerant smile Merle pushed back the fallen lock with one white hand.
"What could you understand of all this?" he asked, gently. "We merely claim the right of free speech."
"And use it to tell other people to upset the Government! That crowd to-night did what you tell your people to do--went against the rules.
But you can"t take your own medicine. A fine bunch of spoiled children you are! Been spoiled by too easy a Government at that!" He broke off to study Merle again. "You"re pasty, out of condition," he repeated, inconsequently.
Again his brother"s intolerant smile.
"You have all the cant of the reactionary," he retorted, again gently.
"It"s the spirit of intolerance one finds everywhere. You can"t expect one of my--" he hesitated, showing a slight impatience. "I"ve been too long where they are thinking," he said.
"Aren"t you people intolerant? You want to break all the rules, and those same rules have made us a pretty good big country."
"Ah, yes, a big country--big! We can always boast of our size, can"t we?
I dare say you believe its bigness is a sign of our merit." Merle had recovered his poise. He was at home in satire. "Besides, I"ve broken no rules, as you call them."
"Oh, I"ll bet you haven"t! You"d be careful not to. I see that much. But you try to get smaller children to. I"d have more patience with you if you"d taken a chance yourself."
"Patience with me--you?" Merle relished this. His laugh was sincere.
"You--would have more patience with--me!" But his irony went for little with a man still at the front.