Stage’s gleefully malicious words rankled sharply under Dad’s thickened, yet vulnerable mental epidermis. Unconsciously his stooping shoulders flattened and his steps fell into time to the fife-and-drum notes to which the recruits were marching and counter-marching. Up Main Street strode Dad. And the once-firm mouth under the straggling gray mustache grew firm and set as of old, as he walked. The eyes, too, took on a less dreamy look and lost their film. Chagrin, sobriety, martial music and hereditary war-spirit were doing their work. Half-way along Main Street, in front of an imposing mercantile establishment, Dad halted. Tightening his lips and setting his jaw, he turned in at the open double doors. Down a long aisle he walked, looking neither to left nor to right, nor seeing the amused and knowing glances of sundry clerks he passed. At a door marked “Private,” at the far end of the store, he paused; his knuckles raised to knock on the glass. Then he changed his mind and, opening the door, entered unbidden. He walked with something of swagger into a pleasantly appointed office, at whose fumed-oak desk sat a dapper man of early middle-age. The man at the desk looked up in momentary vexation at this abrupt advent. Then, recognizing his visitor, his somewhat ascetic face took on a look of patient civility. “Good-morning, father,” he said, rising. “Is anything the matter?” “You ask because I came into a store I used to own?” inquired the older man. “Why, no. Of course not. You are always welcome. I only asked--” “All right. I’m sorry I spoke as I did. I’m not quite myself to-day, and--” He paused as he saw an expression of worry replace the patient courteous look he had come to loathe on his son’s countenance. “No,” he went on, in response to the unasked query, “I am not drunk. It is something else that has upset me. Can--can you give me a few minutes of your time, Joe?” Mr. Joseph Brinton glanced longingly at a pile of unfinished work on his desk; then, seating himself and motioning his father to a chair, sighed imperceptibly in regret as he said: “Certainly, sir. Sit down. My time is always at your disposal.” CHAPTER V PAST-WORTHY Dad seated himself on the edge of the chair and let his broad-brimmed gray hat drop to the floor at his side. The unwonted fit of purpose that had brought him so aggressively into the sacred private office, however, had now begun slowly but noticeably to ebb. And, as ever, he felt curiously sheepish and ill at ease in the presence of this flawless son of his. To gain new hold on his resolve, and incidentally to gain time, he switched from the theme that had brought him thither on sudden impulse. “Is it true,” he asked, “is it true--what Jimmie was telling me--that you have enlisted?” “Yes, sir. In the Second Company. I ought to be drilling with the rest this very minute. We start in three days. But I had a pressure of work here this morning, and Captain Scofield excused me.”