fifteen hundred dollars in two strenuous years for a purpose. She meant to use it for that purpose. She had no intention of side-tracking any of it in Liberty Bonds. She was clear about that. But, listen. Eric in that appealing voice of his, whose unconscious power came, she thought always, from the long suffering of his lameness, was talking about the country--our country--America. The land about which she and the five hundred men had been singing, America needed their money, Eric was saying, for her very life. The girl listened. _She_ was going to New York; that was settled; she hoped Eric would influence these men to put their savings into Liberty Bonds; it was good; it was public-spirited; people ought to do it, probably, but not she. She had a fixed purpose, and it would be silly to let it go. The girl was tenacious. Not for one speech of Eric’s would she change her two years’ decision. Yet a seed of discomfort was springing in her mind. Eric’s voice, with its sincerity, its throb of old pain, flowed on. “Do you realize, men, what it means that the country shall have money to carry on this war? Suppose you lived in a street at the end of which was a dangerous river. Suppose you lived two doors from the wall which guarded that river. Suppose the river was high and threatening to break through, and the family next door was tired out building up the wall. Suppose it was certain that if the river broke, all your city would be destroyed. Would you or wouldn’t you drop work and play and turn anything, everything, into material to build up that wall? The river is Germany, the house next door is England and France--the Allies. The wall is mostly England’s fleet. It’s England’s fleet that has protected us from invasion for three years. As sure as we are here to-day, just so surely Germany will invade America if she can starve out England and make her give up that fleet. We are all nestling behind England’s fleet. We’ve got to see that England isn’t starved; we’ve got to help her fight. She deserves it of us if we were in no peril at all, because she has fought our battle for three years--but we’re in deadly peril. This is our cause--America’s. Our government has got to have money to feed England and to care for our soldiers who are going across--now--to fight for us. It is for our own boys, our good American flesh and blood that the government asks you to buy these bonds. So that they will not be cold and hungry, and short of guns and ammunition to do our fighting. Let us--who cannot go----” Eric’s voice faltered, and the girl felt the shock of sympathy through the audience like a blow. He cleared his throat and smiled boyishly.