"It is the same story about gas and electricity and trolleys. These two men have planned and fought and bought and put things through, while the respectable have been afraid to go ahead, lest they should lose something. Now the respectable grumble. I must think that respectability and thrift are largely responsible for Jake and Reuben." "Confound your historical sense, Dick; it is always slowing you up. If you would concentrate on the present, you would be the greatest asset this town ever had." "Drop it, Ralph. What's the news?" "There it is--more interested in a pack of quarreling Dagoes 5,000 miles away than living things at home. What's the use when your best friend's like that? What has it got to do with us in Sabinsport if Austria has declared war on Serbia--what's Serbia anyhow? A little worn-out, scrappy country without a modern notion in its head." "Do you mean," cried Dick, springing up, "that Austria has declared war?" "That's what this says. It just came in,"--flinging a yellow sheet across the table. "My God! Man, don't you know what that means?" "Well, I suppose it might mean a good-sized war, but I don't believe it. They'll pull things out; always have before, ever since I can remember. What if Germany gets in, as you said it would be the other day; what's that? They'll clean up a little affair like Serbia quick enough; teach her to stop running around with a chip on her shoulder. And no matter, I tell you, Parson; it's nothing to Sabinsport, and Sabinsport is our business. If the world is to be made decent, you've got to begin at home. Don't come bothering me about wars in Europe! I've got war enough if I root out Mulligan and Cowder." But the parson wasn't listening. His face was whiter than usual, and its lines had grown stern. "Good night, Ralph," he said curtly; "just telephone me to-night, will you, if there's more news. I think I'll go out to the 'Emma' after supper." The Reverend Richard walked down the street without seeing people--something unheard of for him. Tom Sabins, going home, said to his wife, "The parson is worried. Met him and he didn't see me. Has anything happened at the mines, do you know?" But Mrs. Sabins said she hadn't heard of trouble. Maybe Micky had been up to mischief again. And they both laughed affectionately. The parson never looked worried, they often had noticed, unless somebody had been very bad or there had been an accident in mill or mine. But it was not things at home that sent the parson blind and deaf down the street. He was the one man in Sabinsport, outside of the keeper of the fruit store and a half dozen miners over the hill, who had some understanding of the awful possibilities of Austria's declaration of war. His knowledge came from the years he had lived as a student in England--the summers he had spent tramping through Middle Europe.