Captain Perry sat back in his chair and thrust his legs under the table. It was apparent that he was embarrassed, but it was apparent also that he would remain firm in the matter of his decision. Nor was Pen at such a loss to understand the reason for his rejection as his question might imply. He knew, instinctively, that the old story of his disloyalty to the flag had come up again, after all these years, to plague and to thwart him. He was quite right. "I will tell you frankly, Butler," replied the captain, "what the trouble is. Since it became known that you wanted to enlist, some members of my company have come to me with a protest against accepting you. They say they represent the bulk of sentiment among the enlisted men. You see, under these circumstances, I can't very well take you. We are citizen soldiers, not under the iron discipline of the regular army, and in matters which are really not essential I must yield more or less to the wishes of my boys. They like, in a way, to choose their associates." He ended with an apologetic wave of the hand, and a smile intended to be conciliatory. Chagrined and wounded, but not abashed nor silenced, Pen stood his ground. He resolved to see the thing through, cost what pain and humiliation it might. "Would you mind telling me," he inquired, "what it is they have against me?" "Why, if you want to know, yes. They say you're not patriotic. To be more explicit they say that up at Chestnut Hill, where you used to live, you--" Pen interrupted him. His patience was exhausted, his calmness gone. "Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, "I know. They say I mistreated the flag. They say I insulted it, threw it into the mud and trampled on it. That's what they say, isn't it?" "Yes, substantially that. Now, I don't know whether it's true or not--" "Oh, it's true enough! I don't deny it. And they say also that on account of it all I had to leave Colonel Butler's house and go and live with my grandfather Walker at Cobb's Corners. They say that, don't they?" "Something of that kind, I believe." "Well, that's true too. But they don't say that it all happened half a dozen years ago, when I was a mere boy, that I did it in a fit of anger at another boy, and had nothing whatever against the flag, and that I was sorry for it the next minute and have suffered and repented ever since. They don't say that that flag is just as dear to me as it is to any man in America, that I love the sight of it; that I'd follow it anywhere, and die for it on any battlefield,--they don't say that, do they?" His cheeks were blazing, his eyes were flashing, every muscle of his body was tense under the storm of passionate indignation that swept over him. Captain Perry, amazed and thrilled by the boy's earnestness, straightened up in his chair and looked him squarely in the face. "No," he replied, "they don't say that. But I believe it's true. And so far as I'm concerned--" Pen again interrupted him.