Minnie.  Come, father, we’ll go home.

Timothy.  Home, is it?  It’s back to the shops I’m going. (To the committee) Damn ye—­we’ll run the shops in spite of ye!  Where’s me hat?

   (Dr. Jonathan hands it to him as the committee file out in silence.)

Come with me as far as the shops, Minnie.  Thank you, doctor—­(as Dr. Jonathan gives him the hat)—­it’s you I’ll be wanting to see when I get me mind again.

(Dr. Jonathan goes with Timothy and Minnie as far as the door, right, and then comes back thoughtfully to the bench, takes up a test tube and holds it to the, light.  Presently Asher pindar appears in the doorway, right.)

Asher.  Good morning, Jonathan.

Dr. Jonathan.  Good morning, Asher.  I didn’t know you’d got back from
Washington.

Asher.  I came in on the mail train.

Dr. Jonathan.  Have you been to the office?

Asher.  No.  I stopped at the house to speak to Augusta, and then—­(he speaks a trifle apologetically)—­well, I went for a little walk.

Dr. Jonathan.  A walk.

Asher.  I’ve been turning something over in my mind.  And the country looked so fine and fresh I crossed the covered bridge to the other side of the river.  When George was a child I used to go over there with him on summer afternoons.  He was such a companionable little shaver—­he’d drop his toys when he’d see me coming home from the office.  I can see him now, running along that road over there, stopping to pick funny little bouquets—­the kind a child makes, you know—­ox-eyed daisies and red clover and buttercups all mixed up together, and he’d carry them home and put them in a glass on the desk in my study.

   (A pause.)

It seems like yesterday!  It’s hard to realize that he’s a grown man, fighting over there in the trenches, and that any moment I may get a telegram, or be called to the telephone—­Have you seen today’s paper?

Dr. Jonathan.  No.

Asher.  It looks like more bad news,—­the Germans have started another one of those offensives.  I was afraid they were getting ready for it.  West of Verdun this time.  And George may be in that sector, for all I know.  How is this thing going to end, Jonathan?  That damned military machine of theirs seems invincible—­it keeps grinding on.  Are we going to be able to stem the tide, or to help stem it with a lot of raw youths.  They’ve only had a year’s training.

Dr. Jonathan.  Germany can’t win, Asher.

Asher.  What makes you say that?  We started several years too late.

Dr. Jonathan.  And Germany started several centuries too late.

Asher.  My God, I hope you’re right.  I don’t know.