When Hal heard of the movement to elect him to the first lieutenancy he tried his best to put a stop to it. He insisted that he was not a candidate, that he was well satisfied with his present position, and that at the end of his term of enlistment--and he had now less than a year to serve--he fully intended to leave the Guard. He besought his particular friends in the company to aid him in putting an end to the movement in his behalf, but, although presumably they complied with his wish, it would not down. Enlisted men came to him and begged him to reconsider his decision. Civilians met him on the street and urged him to stand for the election. To every one he turned a deaf ear. He knew what his reasons were for declining; to him they were good and sufficient; he had made up his mind and that was the end of it. Brownell besieged him again and again. “Hal,” he said, “you must be reasonable and accommodating and give us a chance at least to vote for you. If you don’t run Ben will have no opposition; and if he’s elected, heaven help us! there’ll be no living with him!” “I’ve already told you,” replied McCormack, “that I want to do everything on earth I can for you, because you’ve been very good to me; but I can’t do that. I like the military life. In a way it’s splendid and thrilling. It’s the fascination of it that makes it dangerous. There can be no greater menace to the liberties of a people or to the peoples of the world than the spirit and practice of militarism. Look at Germany, dominated, burdened and brutalized by her military machine, and striving, with no indifferent success, at the cost of millions of lives and seas of blood, to put every nation in Europe under her boot and spur. I tell you, Joe, I’m not a good enough soldier, nor a good enough patriot, to take a commission in the National Guard.” At that Brownell became vexed and impatient. “It’s just because Germany,” he declared, “has run amuck among civilized nations, like a wild beast, that she must be subdued like a wild beast, with powder and steel; and unless I lose my guess, the day is not far distant when we as a nation have got to pitch in and help subdue her. In a time like this, Hal McCormack, you can’t leave the Guard without disgracing yourself, and you can’t turn down a commission without doing a gross injustice to every one of your comrades in arms.” But Sergeant McCormack was obdurate, and Brownell accomplished nothing in any interview. And then, three days after the notice had been posted, Sarah Halpert sent for her nephew. She always had to send for him when she wanted particularly to see him. She declared that when anything especially important was on, he studiously avoided her society.