Long before the armistice he was drilling troops again. And just before it was signed he received a curious note from Gratia. She was glad that the enemy was showing symptoms of collapse, because she hoped that now her friends would treat her better. He did not understand this, and wrote at once to beg for an explanation. But when, a day or two later, a bundle of papers arrived, it threw light on that sentence of Gratia’s. His father had been criticising Asher Ferry. Chase had been interviewed in Winnipeg, where Ferry’s name was well known to the farmers, and the reporter had asked if he were personally known to Mr. Mahan. Chase replied that he had once met Mr. Ferry at a club, but that neither of them was much of a clubman. Being asked if he did not belong to several clubs, the famous engineer admitted that he did, and humorously inquired if the reporter always went to church. Being asked if Mr. Ferry was a good American, Mr. Mahan flatly declined to discuss the gentleman further. When back in Chicago, Chase was immediately confronted by a reporter carrying a copy of the Winnipeg interview. He then loosened up. He said that in March, 1917, Ferry attempted to dissuade one of his employees from enlisting, on the ground that the work he was doing was more important than anything he could do as a soldier. The employee nevertheless presented himself at a recruiting station, and was rejected on account of his eyes. Unwilling to accept this decision, because though rather near-sighted he was performing his usual duties as a designer, he applied in vain at another recruiting station. The designer’s name would be furnished if necessary, but as the disclosure would doubtless cost him his job, the reporter had better inquire round for other proofs of Ferry’s disloyalty. Marvin laid the paper down. So it was Jimmy who had made all this trouble. Though not much of a letter writer, Jimmy had long since informed his chum of the work he was doing. He was making punch-presses fool-proof. In December, 1916, Mr. Ferry had sent for him and asked him what department appealed to him most, and Jimmy had asked to be allowed to remodel the punch-presses. It would be a slow job to change them all, but it ought to be done, because they crushed a good many hands. Marvin immediately wrote again to Gratia, saying that he now understood the case and thought her father mistaken but not disloyal. He trusted that by June he would be home, and that then she would give him the right to stand by her always. Evidently this letter did not help matters, for it was never answered. Her silence tempted him. If she would only refuse him, he would feel free to turn again to his first love. And when presently relieved from drilling troops and set to organizing a corps of instructors in mathematics, he was tempted and fell. That is to say, he fell to doing sums.