“You don't think we've made the world quite as safe for Democracy as it might be?” said Andrews in a low voice. “Hell, how should I know? I bet you never drove an ice wagon.... I did, all one summer down home.... It was some life. Get up at three o'clock in the morning an' carry a hundred or two hundred pounds of ice into everybody's ice box. That was the life to make a feller feel fit. I was goin' around with a big Norwegian named Olaf, who was the strongest man I ever knew. An' drink! He was the boy could drink. I once saw him put away twenty-five dry Martini cocktails an' swim across the lake on top of it.... I used to weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and he could pick me up with one hand and put me across his shoulder.... That was the life to make a feller feel fit. Why, after bein' out late the night before, we'd jump up out of bed at three o'clock feeling springy as a cat.” “What's he doing now?” asked Andrews. “He died on the transport coming 'cross here. Died of the flu.... I met a feller came over in his regiment. They dropped him overboard when they were in sight of the Azores.... Well, I didn't die of the flu. Have another butt?” “No, thanks,” said Andrews. They were silent. The fire roared in the stove. No one was talking. The men lolled in chairs somnolently. Now and then someone spat. Outside of the window Andrews could see the soft white dancing of the snowflakes. His limbs felt very heavy; his mind was permeated with dusty stagnation like the stagnation of old garrets and lumber rooms, where, among superannuated bits of machinery and cracked grimy crockery, lie heaps of broken toys.