“It’s not that I’m so particularly anxious to see you first lieutenant,” she said to him. “I don’t give a rap which one of you is elected. It’s your lack of spirit that I deplore. To think that you, the son of your father, and the grandson of your grandfather, should talk about sneaking out of the Guard when your time’s up; and then to think that you should become a regular slacker just to avoid a contest for an honorable office! Hal McCormack, I’m ashamed of you and disgusted with you! There!” “But, Aunt Sarah,” protested Hal, “I don’t want the office; why should I fight for it? I don’t want to be a lieutenant, nor a major, nor a brigadier-general. I’m satisfied to be a second sergeant in the company, and a private in the army of the world’s workers for peace when my term of enlistment is out.” “Now, stop that pacifist, socialistic nonsense! This is no time for it. The thing for you to do is to prove that you’ve got red blood in your veins, as you have. If your mother had one particle of spunk in her, which she never did have, she’d make you go without your dinners till you come to your senses. Now do as I tell you; stand for that election. Show the kind of stuff that’s in you. Fight for it to the last ditch.” Hal knew there was no use of arguing with his Aunt Sarah, and he did not try to reason with her further. But when he left her she had not convinced him that it was his duty to seek the office of first lieutenant. Among those who besought him to become a candidate, perhaps the hardest one to refuse was Chick, or, as he had come to be known since the evening when, in a spirit of wrath and contempt, Barriscale gave him the title, General Chick. For Hal had no greater admirer, and no more devoted follower in the company, nor indeed in the whole city, than Chick Dalloway. It was at the armory just prior to the Thursday evening drill that Chick said to him: “I couldn’t stay in the company no longer if Sergeant Barriscale was elected first lieutenant.” “Why not, Chick?” asked Hal. “Oh, he’d lord it over everybody,” was the reply. “He’s bad enough as first sergeant. I don’t know what he would be if he was first lieutenant. You’ve got to run, Sergeant ’Cormack; you’ve simply got to run. We’ll see that you’re ’lected, all right. I’ll work my hands an’ feet off, an’ my head, too. An’ they’s plenty more of us’ll do the same thing. I know. I’ve heard the boys talk. Won’t you run, Sergeant ’Cormack?” “No, Chick. I’m sorry to disappoint you; I’m awfully sorry; but I can’t run. It--it wouldn’t be quite right for me to run, Chick, feeling as I do about certain things.” “What things, Sergeant ’Cormack?” “I’ll tell you some time. In the meantime you stay with the company and take whatever comes, and make the best of it, like a good soldier.” “All right! if you say so I will.” The assembly was sounding, the men were taking their places in the ranks, and Sergeant McCormack hurried away to the fulfilment of his duties.