His only conscious thought was grateful remembrance that his wife was kept at the canteen that evening, and couldn't be in the audience, which he found himself regarding as a hostile body waiting to devour him. He sat trying to relax the muscles of his face during the chairman's short address; and then the fatal sentence began: " ... the great pleasure ... introduce ... so well known ... Mr. Walter Brougham, who will say a few rousing words to you on this great subject." What a silly adjective "rousing" was, Brougham thought as he came forward. He had no intention whatever of being rousing. He wondered if he had the intention of being anything except absolutely silent. He lifted the lid and looked into his mind as into an unexplored box. Was there anything in it? Why, yes; rather to his surprise he found there was. "My friends," he began, "this is no time for oratory." Hearty, and to Brougham totally unexpected, applause greeted this sentiment. "This is a time for cool, steady, clear-eyed vision." That was a mistake; of course vision was clear-eyed. "This is a time to ask ourselves this question: How is it that we hesitate to give our money, and yet stand ready--every one of us--to give our lives and--harder still--our sons' lives?" "Hear, hear!" cried a voice from the audience, fresh, young and familiar. Brougham looked down; yes, there they were--his own two boys, David, not eighteen, and Lawrence, hardly fifteen. Their blond, well-brushed heads towered above the rest of the row and were easily recognizable. He could see the expressions of their faces--cool, serene, friendly approval. They're too damned philosophical, he said to himself; and as he went on speaking, with all that was mortal in him concentrated on his words, in some entirely different part of his being a veil was suddenly lifted and he saw something that he had been trying not to see for months--namely, that he was dissatisfied with his elder son's attitude toward the war--it was cool; cool like his approval of the speech. Not that Mr. Brougham wanted his son to volunteer at his age--quite the contrary; he sincerely believed it was every man's duty to wait until he had reached the age designated by his country; but he did want the boy to want to volunteer. He wanted to be able to say at the club as other fathers were saying: "What gets into these young fellows? I've had to forbid my boy--" Perhaps if his self-vision had been perfect he would have admitted that he had sometimes said it.