When Bunny, the “little idealist,” began to make objections to this, he saw that he was hurting his father’s feelings. Dad said that was the regular way of big money deals, and my God, were they running a soup-kitchen? The public would get its share and more—that stock would go to two hundred in the first year, jist you watch and see! But it was Dad and his son who had done the hard work on the Paradise tract, and at Prospect Hill and Lobos River too; and the government wanted them to go on and do more such work, to drill a hundred new wells and help win the war, and how could they do it if they distributed the money around for people to throw away on jazz-parties? Jist look at those “war-babies,” and all the mad spending in New York! Dad was taking care of his money and using it wisely, in industry, where it belonged; he was perfectly sincere, and hard set as concrete, in his conviction that he was the one to whom the profits should come. He and Mr. Roscoe were two individuals who had fought the big companies and kept themselves afloat through all the storms; they were making an unbreakable combination this time, and they were going to get the jack out of it, just you bet! VIII Meantime, the Germans had begun another offensive against the French, the most colossal yet; it was the second Battle of the Marne, and they called it their “Friedensturm,” because they meant to capture Paris and win their peace. But now there were large sectors held by the American troops, of whom there were a million in France, and three hundred thousand coming every month, with all their supplies, in spite of the submarines. These troops were fresh, while all the others were exhausted; and so where they stood, the line did not give way, and the great German offensive was blocked and brought to a standstill. Then, a week or two later, began an event that electrified the whole world; the allies began to advance! Attacking now here, now there, they gained ground, they routed the enemy out of intrenchments which had been years in building, and were counted impregnable. All that mighty Hindenburg line began to crumble; and behind it, the Siegfried line, and the Hunding line, and all the other mythological constructions. To people in America it was the breaking of the first sunrays through black storm clouds. The “Yanks” were wiping out the famous St. Mihiel salient, they were capturing the enemy by tens of thousands, and even more important, the machine guns and artillery which the Germans could not replace. All through the early fall this went on; until the young officers-to-be in Bunny’s training-camp began to fret because this man’s war was going to be over before they got to the scene.