The sergeant still held fast to the collar of Stransky’s blouse.  Stransky could have shaken himself free, as a mastiff frees himself from a puppy, but this was resistance to arrest and he had not yet made up his mind to go that far.  His muscles were weaving under the sergeant’s grip, his eyes glowing as with volcanic fire waiting on the madness of impulse for eruption.

“I wonder if it is really worth while to put him under arrest?” said some one at the edge of the group in amiable inquiry.

The voice came from an officer of about thirty-five, who apparently had strolled over from a near-by aeroplane station to look at the regiment.  From his shoulder hung the gold cords of the staff.  His left hand thrust in the pocket of his blouse heightened the ease of his carriage, which was free of conventional military stiffness, while his eyes had the peculiar eagerness of a man who seems to find everything that comes under his observation interesting and significant.

It was Colonel Arthur Lanstron, whose plane had skimmed the Gallands’ garden wall for the “easy bump” ten years ago.  There was something more than mere titular respect in the way the young captain saluted—–­admiration and the diffident, boyish glance of recognition which does not presume to take the lead in recalling a slight acquaintance with a man of distinction.

“Dellarme!  It’s all of two years since we met at Miss Galland’s, isn’t it?” Lanstron said, shaking hands with the captain.

“Yes, just before we were ordered south,” said Dellarme, obviously pleased to be remembered.

“I overheard your speech,” Lanstron continued, nodding toward Stransky.  “It was very informing.”

A crowd of soldiers was now pressing around Stransky, and in the front rank was Grandfather Fragini.

“Said our flag was no better’n any other flag, did he?” piped the old man.  “Beat him to a pulp!  That’s what the Hussars would have done.”

“If you don’t mind telling it in public, Stransky, I should like to know your origin,” said Lanstron, prepared to be as considerate of an anarchist’s private feelings as of anybody’s.

Stransky squinted his eyes down the bony bridge of his nose and grinned sardonically.

“That won’t take long,” he answered.  “My father, so far as I could identify him, died in jail and my mother of drink.”

“That was hardly to the purple!” observed Lanstron thoughtfully.

“No, to the red!” answered Stransky savagely.

“I mean that it was hardly inclined to make you take ft roseate view of life as a beautiful thing in a well-ordered world where favors of fortune are evenly distributed,” continued Lanstron.

“Rather to make me rejoice in the hope of a new order of things—­the re-creation of society!” Stransky uttered the sentiment with the triumphant pride of a pupil who knows his text-book thoroughly.