The two men presented the greatest possible contrast--Harry Kaperton had elegantly flowing whiskers, a round young face that expressed facile excitement at a possible disturbance, and sporting garb of tremendous emphasis. Elim's face, expressing little of the tumult within, harsh and dark and dogged, was entirely appropriate to his somber greenish-black dress. Kaperton gestured toward the bottle, and they took a second drink, then a third. Kaperton's face flushed, he grew increasingly voluble, but Elim Meikeljohn was silent; the liquor made no apparent impression upon him. He sat across the table from the other with his legs extended straight before him. They emptied the decanter of spirits and turned to sherry, anything that was left. Kaperton apologized profoundly for the depleted state of his cellar--knowing that he was leaving, he had invited a party of men to his room the night before. He was tremendously sorry that Elim had been overlooked--the truth being that no one had known what a good companion Elim was. It seemed to Elim Meikeljohn, drinking sherry, that the night before he had not existed at all. He did not analyze his new being, his surprising potations; he was proceeding without a cautious ordering of his steps. It was neither a celebration nor a protest, but instinctive, like the indiscriminate gulping of a man who has been swimming under the water. “Why,” Kaperton gasped, “you've got a head like a cannon ball.” He rose and wandered unsteadily about, but Elim sat motionless, silent, drinking. He was conscious now of a drumming in his ears like distant martial music, a confused echo like the beat of countless feet. He tilted his glass and was surprised to find it empty. “It's all gone,” Kaperton said dully. He was as limp as an empty doll, Elim thought contemptuously. He, Elim, felt like hickory, like iron; his mind was clear, vindicative. He rose, sweeping back the hair from his high austere brow. Kaperton had slid forward in his chair with hanging open hands and mouth. The drumming in Elim's ears grew louder, a hum of voices was added to it, and it grew nearer, actual. A crowd of men was entering the boarding house, carrying about them a pressure of excited exclamations and a more subtle disturbance. Elim Meikeljohn left Kaperton and went out into the hall. An ascending man met him. “War!” he cried. “The damned rebels have assaulted and taken Sumter! Lincoln has called for fifty thousand volunteers!” He hurried past and left Elim grasping the handrail of the stair. War! The word carried an overwhelming significance to his mind dominated by the intangible drumming, to his newly released freedom. War upon oppression, upon the criminal slaveholders of the South! He descended the stairs, pausing above the small agitated throng in the hall. A passionate elation swept over him. He held his long arms upward and out.