It was not many days before Hal found new employment as an accountant in a large wholesale house in the city. It was not so congenial a task as his old one. The salary was larger, it is true, but the hours were longer, the work more strenuous, the environment not so refined and agreeable. However, so long as he paid strict attention to business, his new employers were not concerned about his beliefs or his personal associations. Indeed, in spite of his own bitter experience, he continued to be on friendly terms with Donatello and his group of reformers and internationalists. The young radical had laid up nothing against Sergeant McCormack on account of his expulsion from the armory on a certain night, but he did not cease to denounce, with ever increasing bitterness, a civil and military system under which such an outrage, as he termed it, was possible. When Hal was forced from his position at the bank, Donatello’s indignation knew no bounds. He declared that the boy was being crucified for his beliefs, at the hands of privilege, and that the incident was but another argument to prove that the money power and the capitalistic system the world over should be overthrown and abolished. And slowly, insidiously, but nevertheless effectually, under the tutelage of Donatello, the poison of radicalism, of internationalism as opposed to patriotism, of syndicalism as distinct from democracy, seeped into the boy’s mind and colored his thought and his purpose. His connection with the National Guard in these days was indeed the only anchor which held him safely to his moorings as a loyal citizen of a great republic. And even at this anchorage he chafed, and from it would willingly have been free. One afternoon, in the street, as he turned a corner near his place of business, he ran into Joe Brownell, second lieutenant of Company E. Brownell had been his friend since the day of his enlistment in the Guard, and, so far as a commissioned officer could do so without exhibiting partiality, he had been his supporter and adviser. “I was just hunting you up, Hal,” he said; “there’s news. Lieutenant Morosco is going to resign.” “Indeed!” was the reply. “How is that?” “Well, you know the Sturtevant people that he’s been with so long have transferred him to the New York office. He goes east next week. That leaves a vacancy in the first lieutenancy.” “Then you’ll go up; and Barriscale will get shoulder straps?” “That’s just the point. That’s a programme I don’t like.” “Why not?” “Oh, there are reasons. One is that I don’t want the place. I’m not fitted for it, and I know it. The boys like me too well and I’ve no more sense of discipline than a ground-hog. If I ever had to command the company I’d collapse. Another reason is that--well, there’s a pretty congenial crowd in officers’ quarters now; I’d like to keep it congenial.” “You mean that Barriscale wouldn’t be quite acceptable there?” “To be frank with you, that’s it exactly.”