And Captain Charlie's pipe was forgotten as he watched his friend and listened. This John Ward was a John Ward that few people in Millsburgh knew. But Captain Charlie knew him. Captain Charlie had seen him tested in all the ways that war tests men. In cold and hunger and the unspeakable discomforts of mud and filth and vermin--in the waiting darkness when an impatient whisper or a careless move to ease overstrained nerves meant a deluge of fire and death--in the wild frenzy of actual conflict--in the madness of victory--in the delirium of defeat--in the dreary marking time--in the tense readiness for the charge--in those many moments when death was near enough to strip the outward husks from these two men and leave their naked souls face to face--Captain Charlie had learned to know John Ward. "Do you remember what the Interpreter said to us the first time we went to see him after we got home?" demanded John. Charlie nodded. "He said for us not to make the mistake of thinking that the war was over just because the Armistice was signed and we were at home in Millsburgh again. I'm afraid a good many people, though, are making just that mistake." "I didn't understand what our old friend meant then, Charlie," continued John, "but I know now. He meant that the same old fight between the spirit of imperialism that seeks the selfish dominion of an individual or class and the spirit of democracy that upholds the oneness of all for all, is still on, right here at home. The President said that the war was to make the world safe for democracy, and there are some wild enthusiasts who say that we Americans won it." "That 'we won the war' stuff is all bunk," interrupted Charlie, in a tone of disgust. "'Bunk' is right," agreed John. "The old A.E.F. did have a hand, though, in putting a crimp in the Kaiser's little plan for acquiring title to the whole human race for himself and family. But if the American people don't wake up to the fact that the same identical principles of human right and human liberty that sent us to France are involved in our industrial controversies here at home, we might as well have saved ourselves the trouble of going over there at all." "That is all true enough," agreed Captain Charlie, "but what is going to wake us up? What is going to send us as a nation against the Kaiser Bills of capital and the Kaiser Bills of labor, or, if you like it better, the imperialistic employers and the equally imperialistic employees?" John Ward fairly shouted his answer, "The Big Idea, my boy--the same Big Idea that sent us to war against imperialism over there will wake us up to drive the spirit of imperialism out of our American industries here at home."