"Are our Toronto chaps in it?" "Very 'eavy, sir. It seems as if the 'Ighland Brigade got it the worst." Montague sank back on the pillow, his face grim and pallid. "Come along, sir; 'ere's your breakfast." His master gazed at the ceiling. "Sylvester," he said listlessly, "for a long time you have ministered to my body. What can you do for a soul that is starving?" The valet beamed reassuringly. A large and varied experience as a servant to young gentlemen had inured him to morning-after repentances. "That's all right, sir," he said, rubbing his hands genially. "A bromo-seltzer will fix you up. 'Ello, sir!" The sound of a military band drew him to the window. "It's one of the new battalions--blooming near a thousand of them. Seems like 'ome, it does, when the Guards used to do London in all their swankin' regimentals." A battalion swung past in steady rhythmical tread to the stirring strains of the Welsh hymn of freedom, "Men of Harlech"--and there was a youthful vigorousness about the men, a suggestion of unconquerable manhood.... And on every man's face there was written pride and determination. For their comrades had been tried at Ypres.... They had held the line.... And, by the living God, the Hun would pay for that foul gas given to the wind to carry against defenseless men. The last ranks of the battalion passed, and the music ceased as suddenly as it had come. The birds resumed their chorus, and William Sylvester his imperturbable mask of deference. Languidly Montague rose from his bed and lit a cigarette. "Our civilization," he said quietly, "need not pride itself on raising those men. Men have always been brave since the beginning of time. The terrible failure of our age is that it has produced men like me--a coward." Mr. Sylvester scratched his head. "Lord bless me, sir!" he ventured, "you're not a coward. Why, look at the jump you took at last year's horse show." Montague turned on him with a vehemence that the valet had never before seen in his master. "I tell you I am a coward," he said fiercely. "Don't I know that my place is with these men? In that battalion that passed there are married men with families, there are only sons of widows, there are brothers, sweethearts. Who is there to care if I go? My death would not cause a single tear; and yet I stay--not that I am afraid of bullets or death, but because I know that I should have to sleep beside men who are filthy, unclean, and that I should grow filthy too. I abhor it. I detest it. Yet I stand aside and let others go." "You--you are a gentleman, sir." "A gentleman!" Montague laughed raspingly. "My own definition last night was 'a man with a valet and three addresses.' What a fool I was! No, I am not a gentleman. I have never been one. The greatest gentleman of all time was a carpenter. That is the truth I have to burn into my soul."