A Poor Wise Man

lf-hour's walk. There were a number of things he had meant to do that evening, with a view to improving his mind, but instead he took a walk. He had made

olitics and Economics. Friday: 8-9:30. Travel. 9:30

was to Washington. That was early in the war, when it did not seem possible that his country would not use him, a boy who could tramp incredible miles in spite

had ref

reet of a little country town. "I tried every branch, but the only training I've had-well, some smart

ou wouldn

hen and had comforted her at so

for mixing prescriptions!" she had sai

we won't worry about it. There's

an, Willy? More

gray eyes, however, when he replied: "More than one way of

at he felt about men. It was something about the fundamental simplicity of them, for one thing. You got pretty close to them at night sometimes, especially when the homesick ones had gone to bed,

ss of their daily lives and thoughts, there was one instinct common to al

ly. Sometimes she smiled at things he said, and if she had not been grave he would not have gone on. "You know," he continued, "there's mostly a girl some place. All this talk about the nation, now-" He settled himself on

did you take any money out of the

. "As I was saying, we've got to think of this c

will you? I'm out three dollars somehow, and I'd rather make it up myself t

mes of the plain people. The middle class, Miss Cardew. My class. The people who never say anything, but a

observed the slightly flushed parasite of capital,

her flaming interest was in the private soldiers. The officers were able to amuse themselves; they had money and opportunity. It was the doughboys she loved and mothered. For them she organized her l

em to stuttering eloquence and awkward gestures. And then there was a third division, small and mostly foreign born, but with a certain percentage of native malcontents, who hated the war and sneered among themselves at the other dupes who believed that it was a war for freedom. It was a capitalists' war. They considered the state as an instrument of oppression,

happy. Are we all happy?" He surveyed the group. "Here, you," he addressed a sullen-eyed squat Hungarian. "Smile when I tell you. Y

e suddenly there was a crash, and the gang leader went down in a welter of porcelain and fried pastry. Willy Cameron was

ere he was still an aching, mass of bruises, "there must be something

nfessed, extremely happy, "of course there's something behind it. But the most that's beh

enly found life a stale thing, and ashes in the mouth. He finally decided that he had not been suc

ciously to himself, and deliberately ignoring the fact that some twenty-odd officers stood ready to seize those Friday nights. "And then to work hard, so I'll sleep better, and not lie awake

mself that he was surprised to find it Friday again. But when, after retreat, the band marched back again to its quarters playing, for instance, "There's a Long, Lo

k to do he stayed and finished up, as did Lily Cardew. But the hut was closed and she was working in the

you are busy, how soon F

and said to himself: "This is Monday-"-or whatever

took up life again as best he could. But sometimes it seemed to him that from behind every fire-lit window in the evenings-

nner than ever, and oddly older, and there w

illy," she said, one evening when he had been feverishly runn

t take any of that stuff." He caught her eye and looked away. "I

is having an entertainment a

o her unspoken suggestion. "If you

er he came downst

alk about romances! Let me read some of it to you. You sit there and close your eyes

there, fighting again his patient battle with himself. The book on his knee seemed to symbolize the gulf between Lily Ca

, in America," he r

the tendency of civilization for men to divide themselves, rather than to be divided, into the high, the middle and the low. But in his gener

man. Men fought, in war time. They did not fry doughnuts and write letters home for the illiterate. Any one of those boys in the ranks was a better m

He put the book on the table, and suddenly flinging his arms across

illy!"

t fool Nelson kid would break his mandolin-or his neck," he said irritably. He kissed her and went upstairs. From

ly planning, and when everything was arranged in orderly fashion in her mind, she lighted her lamp and carried it to the door of Willy's room. He lay diagona

stared around the room. "Too much of it," she repeated. And crawled

a desire to spend a few months

d James has been wanting me this long time. I don't want to leave yo

e hurt, to tell the truth. He no more

artily. "It's the very thing. But I li

, pouring his coffee. "I-if you were in the ci

glance, but her face was

d I do in

sts in the mill

that sort of job," he scoff

tely, the incredulous pause of the bird whos

bout it, any

native a thing as a Nemesis, he would probably have summoned a vision of a huddled figure in his stable-yard, dying, and cursing him as he died. Had Jim Doyle, cunningly plotting the overthrow of law and order, been able in his arrogance to conceive

after an hour of Politics, and no Economics at all, happened to be taking a walk toward the Cardew house. Such pilgrimages has love taken for many years, small uncertain rambli

cence that housed her, it would through her sheer remoteness kill the misery in him. But he regarded

ught, on a crowded street: "The People's voice is a queer thing. 'It is, and it is not, the

got a bath by means of calculation and persistency, and went to the movies on Friday nights,

draped women and men in evening clothes, their strong blacks and whites revealed in the light of the street door. And this Lily Cardew lived in state, bowed to by flunkeys in livery, dressed and undressed-his Scotch sense of de

ter all. Because it was the first Lily whom he loved, and she was gone, with the camp and the rest,

" he said cheerfully to t

without it. He considered that very definitely he had put love out of his life. Hereafter he would travel t