John Benton, son of uneducated farmers, was a senior in high school when English propaganda drew his country into war. He was a shy and neurotic young man, deeply ashamed of his social background and his illiterate relatives. He was among the first to enlist. He went not as a patriot but as one without social or cultural anchor and without friends, who saw in war an opportunity to prove his courage and his worth. Nobody in his home town had ever spoken to him, except one barber and the neighboring farmers whom he met on the streets. And now he was to be a policeman or a night watchman or assistant to the sheriff; he was called by his first name; he was invited into the best homes. And in these first days he was very happy and loved his townsfolk and began to fancy himself as a man of national importance. But after his brief reply to the great welcome there had been a sudden and drastic change. When he met the mayor now or any of the other plump and prosperous men who had made his homecoming a memorable day, he was acknowledged with a curt nod or not at all. He got no job of any kind and he wandered up and down the streets or sat in pool halls watching the poker chips, feeling a little vengeful and deeply unhappy, and wondering why he had become only John Benton of the Benton farm on Mill Creek. It was Bill Hawkworth who gave him an idea. Bill was a lean man with shrewd and cynical eyes and a tubercular cough. He worked in a pool hall with a cigarette hanging from his white mouth and a fixed and changeless contempt in his pale eyes. He sat by John one day and looked at him with leering pity. “What’s the matter, buddy? Ain’t they treatun you right any more?” “I don’t know what you mean,” said John, looking at Bill’s wet dead cigarette. “Oh, you know, all right. The mayor,” said Bill, and jerked his sallow head toward city hall. “All them fat guys, buddy.” He smiled. His upper lip curled and the hair of his ragged mustache fell like a hedge across his yellow teeth. “You fanned out quick, didn’t you? Well, buddy, do you know why?” John turned a little angrily and looked at the lidless cynicism of Bill’s eyes. “No,” he said. “Want me to tell you?” “Well, sure—if you can.” “All right, buddy, it’s this way. You come back from war a big hero and the city gives you a big bust and there’s speeches and flags and popcorn for everyone and they wanted to hear how you licked hell out of them Huns. And right there’s where you fanned. You come to bat all right, but you just wouldn’t swing at the ball.” Bill’s lips curled against his teeth and his eyes flickered. “You get me?” he said. “You mean—? No,” said John, “I don’t know what you mean.” “I mean you coulda put this town right in your pocket. You coulda jumped plumb into the middle of society and married the richest girl around here and had a truckload of fortune drive right down your alley. But what did you say when they asked what you thought of the popcorn?” “I don’t remember.”