“I heard about that,” she said, looking at him very earnestly, with a dumb emotion struggling in her eyes. “That’s why I’m going.” Something about the look in her eyes silenced the business man for a moment. He thought uneasily that she had certainly gone a little dippy over the war. Then he drew a long breath and started in confidently to dissuade her. At ten o’clock, informed that if she went she need not expect to come back, she went out to the savings-bank, drew out her five hundred dollars, went down to the station and bought a ticket to Washington, one of Mr. Pennypacker’s arguments having been the great difficulty of getting a passport. Then she went back to the boarding-house and began to pack two-thirds of her things into her trunk, and put the other third into her satchel, all she intended to take with her. At noon Maggie came back from her work, found her thus, and burst into shocked and horrified tears. At two o’clock Maggie went to find the young reporter, and, her eyes swollen, her face between anger and alarm, she begged him to come and “talk to Ellen. She’s gone off her head.” The reporter asked what form her mania took. “She’s going to France to work for the French and Belgians as long as her money holds out ... all the money she’s saved in all her life!” The first among the clashing ideas which this awakened in the reporter’s mind was the most heartfelt and gorgeous amusement. The idea of that dumb, backwoods, pie-faced stenographer carrying her valuable services to the war in Europe seemed to him the richest thing that had happened in years! He burst into laughter. “Yes, sure I’ll come and talk to her,” he agreed. He found her lifting a tray into her trunk. “See here, Miss Boardman,” he remarked reasonably, “do you know what you need? You need a sense of humor! You take things too much in dead earnest. The sense of humor keeps you from doing ridiculous things, don’t you know it does?” Ellen faced him, seriously considering this. “Do you think all ridiculous things are bad?” she asked him, not as an argument, but as a genuine question. He evaded this and went on. “Just look at yourself now ... just look at what you’re planning to do. Here is the biggest war in the history of the world; all the great nations involved; millions and millions of dollars being poured out; the United States sending hundreds and thousands of packages and hospital supplies by the million; and nurses and doctors and Lord knows how many trained people ... and, look! who comes here?—a stenographer from Walker and Pennypacker’s, in Marshallton, Kansas, setting out to the war!” Ellen looked long at this picture of herself, and while she considered it the young man looked long at her. As he looked, he stopped laughing. She said finally, very simply, in a declarative sentence devoid of any but its obvious meaning, “No, I can’t see that that is so very funny.”