It appeared that when the Bolsheviks took charge of Russia they found themselves with a great army of war prisoners, among them a hundred thousand Czecho-Slovaks. This was a new name—you looked it up in the encyclopedias and couldn’t find it, and had to have it explained to you that they were Bohemians, but this was a German word, and just as we had changed hamburger into liberty steak and sauerkraut into liberty cabbage, so the Bohemians became Czecho-Slovaks, which nobody knew how to spell when they heard it, or to pronounce when they saw it. The people of this race were revolting against Germany, and the Bolsheviks had agreed that their Czecho-Slovak prisoners would be shipped to Vladivostok, where the allies might take charge of them, and bring them to the fighting front if they saw fit. But on the way across Siberia the Czecho-Slovaks got to fighting with the Bolsheviks and the released German war prisoners, and had seized a great section of the railroad. So now into this weird mix-up the allies were intervening. The newspapers explained the matter: the Bolshevik movement was an uprising of fanatics, imposed upon the Russian people by the guns of hired mercenaries, Chinese and Mongolians and Cossacks and escaped criminals and general riff-raff; it couldn’t last very long, a few weeks or months at the most, and what was needed was to supply a nucleus about which the decent Russians might rally. The allies were now undertaking to do that; American and Japanese troops were to help the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia, and American and British troops were to organize the Russian refugees at Archangel in the far north. So here was Paul, going to build barracks and Y. M. C. A. huts along the famous Trans-Siberian railway, and see for himself those exciting events about which he had been debating with Dad. Bunny was going to a training-camp, and maybe when he got through they would send him to the same front—that was a case where he would let Dad use his influence! Bunny meant to work hard and rise in the service, and maybe he would have Paul and his carpenters under his command! They had a hard time keeping their spirits up, because of Ruth, who was utterly inconsolable. She would go about the place with tears running down her cheeks, and now and then would have to jump up and rush from the room. When the time came for Paul to say his last farewell, Ruth almost went out of her mind; she locked her arms about his neck, and he had to pull her fingers away. It was sad for a fellow, to be driven away with his sister lying in a faint in a chair. Old Mr. Watkins had to come up and take her home, and send up Sadie to do the housework for Dad. By golly, it made you realize about war! VI