“Of course it’s our quarrel. Those stupid German blunderers have made it our quarrel. They’ve trodden on Uncle Sam’s coat-tails once a week for a year. They’ll do it about twice more and then something will drop. Besides, there’s all that hubbub down in Mexico, making life a nightmare this side the border. Those hoodlums have got to be clubbed into decency, and I don’t see but what you fellows have got to go down there and do it. There isn’t enough of the regular army to patrol a greaser’s cabin. And if you don’t get a taste of war across the seas or down among the cactus, you may have a chance to show your mettle right here at home. They say the workmen in the mills are getting impudent and ugly and threatening a strike that’ll make Ben Barriscale’s hair stand on end. I mean the old man.” She paused, not because she had no more to say, but in order to take fresh breath. The pause gave Hal another chance to break in. “I wouldn’t mind helping to defend this country against a foreign foe, if it were necessary,” he said, “or even assisting to suppress a domestic rebellion against the lawfully organized government. But when it comes to doing strike duty I protest. That’s a job for the state police anyway; not for the National Guard.” “But it _is_ a job for the National Guard when it gets too big for the police or the state police to handle. I suppose men have a right to quit work whenever they want to; but they haven’t a right to try to win a strike with brickbats and torches.” “If workmen were fairly treated, and given their due proportion of the product of their labor, there would be no strikes, and no brickbats, and no torches. Anyway, the idea of workers being awed or shot or bayoneted by the militia into submission to their capitalist employers’ terms, is so abhorrent to me that I don’t want to think of it.” “There you go again, you wild-eyed anarchist! A fine militiaman you are! Threatening to compound felonies and protect criminals! You’d better----” “There, now, Aunt Sarah, let’s call quits! We’ll never agree in the world. You come up to the armory to-morrow night and see me in my new uniform, and forget that I’m a bomb-throwing, king-killing anarchist.”