“The pater says we’ve all got to be men, now,” said Dick, steadily.  “The mater cried a bit when he said he was going —­ but I think she must have known all the time he was going.  Because when he told us —­ we were at the breakfast table —­ she sort of cried a little, and then she stopped.

“I’ve got everything ready for you,’ she said.

“And he looked at her, and smiled.  ‘So you knew I was going?’ he asked her.  And she nodded her head, and he got up and kissed her.  I never saw him do that before he never did that before, when I was looking on,” Dick concluded seriously.  “I hope he’ll come back all right, Dick,” said Harry.  “It’s hard, old chap!”

“I wouldn’t have him stay home for anything!” said Dick, fiercely.  “And I will do my share!  You see if I don’t!  I don’t care what they want me to do!  I’ll run errands —­ I’ll sweep out the floors in the War Office, so that some man can go to war!  I’ll do anything!”

Somehow Harry realized in that moment how hard it was going to be to beat a country where even the boys felt like that!  The change in the usually thoughtless, light-hearted Dick impressed him more than anything else had been able to do with the real meaning of what had come about so suddenly.  And he was thankful, too, all at once, that in America the fear and peril of War were so remote.  It was glorious, it was thrilling, but it was terrible, too.  He wondered how many of the scouts he knew, and how many of those in school would lose their fathers or their brothers in this war that was beginning.  Truly, there is no argument for peace that can compare with war itself!  Yet how slowly we learn!

Grenfel had gone, and the troop was now in charge of a new scoutmaster, Francis Wharton.  Mr. Wharton was a somewhat older man.  At first sight he didn’t look at all like the man to lead a group of scouts, but that, as it turned out, was due to physical infirmities.  One foot had been amputated at the time of the Boer War, in which he had served with Grenfel.  As a result he was incapacitated from active service, although, as the scouts soon learned, he had begged to be allowed to go in spite of it.  He appeared at the scout headquarters, the pavilion of a small local cricket club, on Wednesday morning.

“I don’t know much about this —­ more shame to me,” he said, cheerfully, standing up to address the boys.  “But I think we can make a go of it —­ think we’ll be able to do something for the Empire, boys.  My old friend John Grenfel told me a little; he said you’d pull me through.  These are war times and you’ll have to do for me what many a company in the army does for a young officer.”

They gave him a hearty cheer that was a promise in itself.