"Ha!" laughed Henry Kemp, jovially. Then suddenly sobering, regarded the glowing end of his cigar. "But they do say it's darned good poetry. People who know. Crazy--but good. I read one of 'em. It's all about dead horses and entrails and----" he stopped and coughed apologetically. "His new book is going to be called----" Here he went off into a silent spasm of laughter. "Henry, you know that's just because you don't understand. It's the new verse." "His new book," Henry Kemp went on, gravely, "is called 'White Worms.'" He looked at Ben Gartz. The two men laughed uproariously. Mrs. Payson sat forward stiffly in her rocking chair. "And you let Charley go about with this person!" "Oh, mother, please. Let's not discuss Charley's affairs. Mr. Gartz can't be interested." "Oh, but I am! Aren't you, Miss Lottie? Young folks----" "Besides, all the girls are quite mad about him. Charley's the envy of them all. He's the most sought-after young man in Hyde Park. He wrote a poem to Charley that appeared in _Poetry_ last month." Belle dismissed the whole affair with a little impatient kick of her foot that sent the dangling slipper flying. "Oh, Henry--my slipper!" Henry retrieved it. "Besides they're only children. Charley's a baby." Mrs. Carrie Payson began to rock in the squeaky chair, violently. "You heard what she said about the five." "The five?" "About the five--you know." In the laughter that followed great-aunt Charlotte slipped out of the room, vanished up the stairs. Then the War, of course. Ben Gartz was the sort that kept a map in his office, with coloured pins stuck everywhere in it. They began to talk about the War. They say it'll go on for years and years; it can't, the Germans are starving; don't you believe it, they've prepared for this for forty years; aren't the French wonderful, would you believe it to look at them so shrimpy; it's beginning to look pretty black for them just the same; we'll be in it yet, you mark my words; should have gone in a year ago, that was the time; if ever we do--zowie. Lottie sat knitting. Ben Gartz reached over and fingered the soft springy mass of wool. There was an intimacy about the act. "If we go into it and I go off to war will you knit me some of these, Miss Lottie? H'm?" Lottie lifted her eyes. "If you go off to fight I'll knit you a whole outfit, complete: socks, muffler, helmet, wristlets, sweater." "'Death, where is thy sting'!" Ben Gartz rolled a pale blue eye. Henry Kemp was not laughing now. His face looked a little drawn and old. He had allowed his cigar to go dead in the earnestness of the war talk. "You're safe, Lottie. It'll be over before we can ever go into it." Ben Gartz flapped a hand in disagreement. "Don't you be too sure of that. I've heard it pretty straight that we'll be in by this time next year--if not before. I've had an offer to go into the men's watch-bracelet business on the strength of it. And if we do I'm going to take it. Fortune in it."