“If you haven’t been here before, you’ll like the old places.”

“I am going to one of them.”

“Which?”

“King’s Crest.”

A moment’s silence.  Then, “That’s my home.  I have lived there all my life.”

The lame man gave him a sharp glance.  “I heard of it in
Washington—­delightful atmosphere—­and all that——­”

“You are going as a—­paying guest?”

“Yes.”

A deep flush stained the younger man’s face.  Suddenly he broke out.  “If you knew how rotten it seems to me to have my mother keeping—­boarders——­”

“My dear fellow, I hope you don’t think it is going to be rotten to have me?”

“No.  But there are other people.  And I didn’t know until I came back from France——­ She had to tell me when she knew I was coming.”

“She had been doing it all the time you were away?”

“Yes.  Before I went we had mortgaged things to help me through the University.  I should have finished in a year if I hadn’t enlisted.  And Mother insisted there was enough for her.  But there wasn’t with the interest and everything—­and she wouldn’t sell an acre.  I shan’t let her keep on——­”

“Are you going to turn me out?”

His smile was irresistible.  Randy smiled back.  “I suppose you think I’m a fool——?”

“Yes.  For being ashamed of it.”

Randy’s head went up.  “I’m not ashamed of the boarding-house.  I am ashamed to have my mother work.”

“So,” said the lame man, softly, “that’s it?  And your name is Paine?”

“Randolph Paine of King’s Crest.  There have been a lot of us—­and not a piker in the lot.”

“I am Mark Prime.”

“Major Prime of the 135th?”

The other nodded.  “The wonderful 135th—­God, what men they were——­” his eyes shone.

Randy made his little gesture of salute.  “They were that.  I don’t wonder you are proud of them.”

“It was worth all the rest,” the Major said, “to have known my men.”

He looked out of the window at the drizzle of rain.  “How quiet the world seems after it all——­”

Then like the snap of bullets came the staccato voice through the open door of the compartment.

“Find out why we are stopping in this beastly hole, Kemp, and get me something cold to drink.”

Kemp, sailing down the aisle, like a Lilliputian drum major, tripped over Randy’s foot.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, and sailed on.

Randy looked after him. “‘His Master’s voice——­’”

“And to think,” Prime remarked, “that the coldest thing he can get on this train is ginger ale.”

Kemp, coming back with a golden bottle, with cracked ice in a tall glass, with a crisp curl of lemon peel, ready for an innocuous libation, brought his nose down from the heights to look for the foot, found that it no longer barred the way, and marched on to hidden music.

“Leave the door open, leave it open,” snapped the voice, “isn’t there an electric fan?  Well, put it on, put it on——­”