The automobile brought amazingly sudden wealth; munition manufacture added to it with a blinding flash--and Detroit came to know what spending was. These five young men, sitting in mid-afternoon in the Hotel Pontchartrain bar, were a part of all this; their life was the result of it; the thoughts, or lack of thoughts, in their minds, derived from it inevitably, remorselessly. They were castaways thrown up in a barroom by a golden flood. To four of them a nickel for candy had been an event; now, without mental anguish, each of them could sign a dinner check which stretched to three figures, or buy a runabout or a yacht, or afford the luxury of acquaintance with the young woman who stood fourth from the end in the front row. Let them not be chided too harshly. The fault was not theirs wholly, but was the inevitable result of their environment. They played at work, drew salaries--but could spend their afternoons in the Pontchartrain, in the Tuller, on the links or at _thé dansant_. They knew no responsibility to man, felt but a hazy responsibility to God, and as for their country, they had never thought about its existence. They talked of the war, were pro-Ally with the exception of Kraemer, whom they baited when the fit was on them. Kraemer had been born on Brady Street. His grandfather was a 'forty-eighter. It was natural that he should see eye to eye with the land from which he derived his blood. Of them all, he alone took the war with seriousness, so they baited him at times, and he raged for their amusement. They began the sport now. "If the Kaiser only had the grand duke," said La Mothe, "he might stand some show. Look what he's done and what he had to do it with! I don't figure it'll last much longer. Everybody's lickin' Germany." Kraemer banged the table. "You'll see," he said, passionately. "The war would be over now if it wasn't for the _neutrality_ of the United States. This country's just prolonging the agony. If it wasn't for the munitions the Allies get from here, we'd be in Paris and London and St. Petersburg. Devil of a neutrality, ain't it? Look here...." "Rats!" said O'Mera. "Where's Potter, anyhow?" "Haven't seen him to-day. Ought to be driftin' in." "He's over at police headquarters," said a new voice, and Tom Randall beckoned a waiter and sat down at the table. "Pinched again?" came in chorus. "No, but he'll probably get himself pinched before he's through with it. Know the von Essen girl?" "Hildegarde, you mean? Sassy one? Swiftest flapper that ever flapped?"