There was a murmur of approval.  One man spoke, a fighting parson he had been.  “It argues democracy in itself, General, that a Russian aristocrat, the brother of a Duke, should remember so well the adventures of a common soldier.”

The smouldering eyes of the Slav turned to the speaker and regarded him gravely.  “I remember those adventures well,” he answered.

The Judge, flung back in a corner of the davenport, his knees crossed and rings from his cigar ascending, stared at the ceiling, “Come along, Peter.  You’re due to entertain us,” the Senator adjured him, and the Judge, staring upwards, began.

“This is the year 1947.  It was in 1917 that the United States went into war—­thirty years ago.  The fifth of June, 1917, was set, as you remember, for the registration of all men in the country over twenty-one and under thirty-one for the draft.  I was twenty-three, living in this house with my father and mother, both dead before the war ended.  Being outside of the city, the polling place where I was due to register was three miles off, at Hiawatha.  I registered in the morning; the polls were open from seven A.M. to nine P.M.  My mother drove me over, and the road was being mended, and, as happened in those days in the country, half a mile of it was almost impassable.  There were no adjustable lift-roads invented then.  We got through the ruts and stonework, but it was hard going, and we came home by a detour through the city rather than pass again that beastly half mile.  That night was dark and stormy, with rain at intervals, and as we sat in this room, reading, the three of us—­” The Judge paused and gazed a moment at the faces in the lamplight, at the chairs where his guests sat.  It was as if he called back to their old environment for a moment the two familiar figures which had belonged here, which had gone out of his life.  “We sat in this room, the three of us,” he repeated, “and the butler came in.

“‘If you please, sir, there’s a young man here who wants to register,’ he said.

“‘Wants to register!’ my father threw at him.  ‘What do you mean?’

“We all went outside, and there we found not one, but five boys, Russians.  There was a munitions plant a mile back of us and the lads worked there, and had wakened to the necessity of registering at the last moment, being new in the country and with little English.  They had directions to go to the same polling place as mint, Hiawatha, but had gotten lost, and, seeing our lights, brought up here.  Hiawatha, as I said, is three miles away.  It was eight-thirty and the polls closed at nine.  We brought the youngsters inside, and I dashed to the garage for the car and piled the delighted lads into it and drove them across.