Outside they stood in perplexity.  They thought, of course, that the old man would have driven away without them; they pictured the long walk from the trolley-line in the darkness and mud—­and with Lizzie dressed in her only Sunday-go-to-meeting!  But when they went to the place where Mr. Drew had left his buggy, to their surprise they found him patiently waiting for them.  Seeing them hesitate, he said, “Come!  Get in!” They were much embarrassed, but obeyed, and the old mare started her amble towards home.

They rode for a long time in silence.  Finally Jimmie could not stand it, and began, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Drew.  You don’t understand—­” But the old man cut him off.  “There’s no use you and me tryin’ to talk, young man.”  So they rode the rest of the way without a sound—­except that once Jimmie imagined he heard Lizzie sobbing to herself.

Jimmie really felt terribly about it, for he had for this old soldier a deep respect, even an affection.  Mr. Drew had made his impression not so much by his arguments, which Jimmie considered sixty years out of date, as by his personality.  Here was one patriot who was straight!  What a pity that he could not understand the revolutionary point of view!  What a pity that he had to be made angry!  It was one more of the horrors of war, which tore friends apart, and set them to disputing and hating one another.

At least, that was the way it seemed to Jimmie that night, while he was still full of the speeches he had heard.  But at other times doubts assailed him—­for, of course, a man cannot defy and combat a whole community without sometimes being led to wonder whether the community may not have some right on its side.  Jimmie would hear of things the Germans had done in the war; they were such dirty fighters, they went out of their way to do such utterly revolting and useless, almost insane things!  They made it so needlessly hard for anyone who tried to defend them to think of them even as human beings.  Jimmie would argue that he did not mean to help the Germans; he would resent bitterly the charges of the Leesville newspapers that he was a German agent and a traitor; but he could not get away from the uncomfortable fact that the things he was doing did have a tendency to further German interests, at least for a time.

When that was pointed out to him by some patriot in a controversy, his answer would be that he was appealing to the German Socialists to revolt against their military leaders; but then the patriot would begin to find fault with the German Socialists, declaring that they were much better Germans than Socialists, and citing utterances and actions to prove it.  One German Socialist had stood up in the Reichstag and declared that the Germans had two ways of fighting—­their armies overcame their enemies in the field, while their Socialists undermined the morale of the workers in enemy countries.  When that passage was read to Jimmie, he answered that it was a lie; no such