"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!" He raised a great fist high. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me, twenty years ago. You come to me with talk like that. Where's my boy! You killed him, you two, twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else. Where's my son that should have gone marching by today?" He flung his arms out in a great gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on his forehead. "Where's my son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable women. Where's my son!" Then, as they huddled together, frightened, wild-eyed: "Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!" They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them. Jo stood, shaking, in the center of the room. Then he reached for a chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, flabby hand over his forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still. It sounded far away and unimportant, like something forgotten. I think he did not even hear it with his conscious ear. But it rang and rang insistently. Jo liked to answer his telephone, when at home. "Hello!" He knew instantly the voice at the other end. "That you, Jo?" it said. "Yes." "How's my boy?" "I'm--all right." "Listen, Jo. The crowd's coming over tonight. I've fixed up a little poker game for you. Just eight of us." "I can't come tonight, Gert." "Can't! Why not?" "I'm not feeling so good." "You just said you were all right." "I am all right. Just kind of tired." The voice took on a cooing note. "Is my Joey tired? Then he shall be all comfy on the sofa, and he doesn't need to play if he don't want to. No, sir." Jo stood staring at the black mouthpiece of the telephone. He was seeing a procession go marching by. Boys, hundreds of boys, in khaki. "Hello! Hello!" The voice took on an anxious note. "Are you there?" "Yes," wearily. "Jo, there's something the matter. You're sick. I'm coming right over." "No!" "Why not? You sound as if you'd been sleeping. Look here----" "Leave me alone!" cried Jo, suddenly, and the receiver clacked onto the hook. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone." Long after the connection had been broken. He stood staring at the instrument with unseeing eyes. Then he turned and walked into the front room. All the light had gone out of it. Dusk had come on. All the light had gone out of everything. The zest had gone out of life. The game was over--the game he had been playing against loneliness and disappointment. And he was just a tired old man. A lonely, tired old man in a ridiculous, rose-colored room that had grown, all of a sudden, drab. [Footnote 1: _From Edna Ferber's Cheerful by Request. Copyright, 1918, 1922, by Doubleday, Page & Co. By permission of the publishers._] [Illustration: IRVIN S. COBB] _FOREWORD_ _My favorite short story of all the short stories I have written is "The Escape of Mr. Trimm." It was the first piece of avowed fiction I wrote. It was written more than twelve years ago._