one. But I had never seen American troops, and I was anxious to see how they behaved. I said to myself, "The American is volatile and impressionable, like a child." I had met Americans who within an hour's acquaintance had told me their life-story, given me their views on religion, politics, and art, and invited me to go out to Iowa or Wisconsin or California and spend the summer with them. Moreover, the American above all things is emotional and-may I say it?-sentimental. It would therefore be extremely interesting to see how he came through this ordeal.

The first band passed, and the people were waving flags and handkerchiefs from the windows. We could hear the cheers go up from the great throng in the square. And there at last, sure enough, was Old Glory, with its silken tassels floating in the London breeze, carried by a solemn giant, with another on each side.

And then they came, marching in fours, with their rifles at the slope, the vanguard of Uncle Sam's army. And we in Cockspur Street raised a mighty cheer. They were solemn, bronzed men, loose of limb, hard, and strong, with a curious set expression of purpose about them.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

And they looked neither to the right nor the left; nor did they look up or smile or apparently take any notice of the cheers we raised. We strained forward to see their faces, and we cried out to them our welcome.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

They were not all tall; some were short and wiry. Some of the officers were rather elderly and wore horn spectacles. But they did not look at us or raise a smile of response. They held themselves very erect, but their eyes were cast down or fixed upon the back of the man in front of them. There came an interval, and another band, and then Old Glory once more, and we cheered the flag even more than the men. Fully a thousand men passed in this solemn procession, not one of them smiling or looking up. It became almost disconcerting. It was a thing we

were not used to. A fellow-cockney near me murmured:

"They're solemn-looking blokes, ain't they?"

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

The band blared forth once more, a drum-and-fife corps with a vibrant thrill behind it. We strained forward more eagerly to see the faces of our friends from the New World. We loved it best when the sound of the band had died away and the only music was the steady throb of those friendly boots upon our London streets. And still they did not smile. I had a brief moment of some vague apprehension, as though something could not be quite right. Some such wave, I think, was passing through the crowd. What did it mean?

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

The cheers died away for a few moments in an exhausted diminuendo. Among those people, racked by three years of strain and suffering, there probably was not one who had not lost some one dear to them. Even the best nerves have their limitation of endurance. Suddenly the ready voice of a woman from the pavement called out:

"God bless you, Sammy!"

And then we cheered again in a different key, and I noticed a boy in the ranks throw back his head and look up. On his face was that expression we see only on the faces of those who know the finer sensibilities-a fierce, exultant joy that is very near akin to tears. And gradually I became aware that on the faces of these grim men was written an emotion almost too deep for expression.

As they passed it was easy to detect their ethnological heritage. There was the Anglo-Saxon type, perhaps predominant; the Celt; the Slav; the Latin; and in many cases definitely the Teuton: and yet there was not one of them that had not something else, who was not preeminently a good "United States-man." It was as though upon the anvil of the New World all the troubles of the Old, after being passed through a white-hot furnace, had been forged into something

clear and splendid. And they were hurrying on to get this accomplished. For once and all the matter must be settled.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

There was a slight congestion, and the body of men near me halted and marked time. A diminutive officer with a pointed beard was walking alone. A woman in the crowd leaned forward and waved an American flag in his face. He saluted, made some kindly remark, and then passed on.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

The world must be made safe for democracy.

And I thought inevitably of the story of the Titan myth, of Prometheus, the first real democrat, who held out against the gods because they despised humanity. And they nailed him to a rock, and cut off his eyelids, and a vulture fed upon his entrails.

But Prometheus held on, his line of reasoning being:

"After Uranus came Cronus. After Cronus came Zeus. After Zeus will come other gods."

It is the finest epic in human life, and all the great teachers and reformers who came after told the same story-Christ, Vishnu, Confucius, Mohammed, Luther, Shakspere. The fundamental basis of their teaching was love and faith in humanity. And whenever humanity is threatened, the fires which Prometheus stole from the gods will burn more brightly in the heart of man, and they will come from all quarters of the world.

understood the silence of those grim men. They seemed to epitomize not merely a nation, not merely a flag, but the unbreakable sanctity of human rights and human life. And I knew that whatever might happen, whatever the powers of darkness might devise, whatever cunning schemes or diabolical plans, or whatever temporary successes they might attain, they would ultimately go down into the dust before "the fateful lightning." "After Zeus will come other gods."

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

Nothing could live and endure against that steady and irresistible progression. And we know how you can do things, America. We have seen your workshops, your factories, and your engines of peace. And we have seen those young men of yours at the Olympic Games, with their loose, supple limbs, their square, strong faces. When the Spartans, lightly clad, but girt for war, ran across the hills to Athens and, finding the Persian hosts defeated, laughed, congratulated the Athenians, and ran back again—since those days there never were such runners, such athletes, as these boys of yours from Yale and Harvard, Princeton and Cornell.

And so on that day, if we cheered the flag more than we cheered the men, it was because the flag was the symbol of the men's hearts, which were too charged with the fires of Prometheus to trust themselves expression.

At least that is how it appeared to me on that forenoon in Cockspur Street, and I know that later in the day, when I met a casual friend, and he addressed me with the usual formula of the day: "Any news?"

I was able to say:

"Yes, the best news in the world." And when he replied:

"What news?"

I could say with all sincerity:

"I have seen a portent. The world is safe for democracy."

New York,

DEAREST Muz:

November 29.

D-, J- & Co. Everything 's going to break right eventually, but no knowing how long I'll be sewed up here.

Pretty tough luck, I call it, to spend two years in a steam-heated South American jungle, romp gleefully home to the best family in the best State in the world, only to be haled forth to another steamheated jungle in New York!

I've seen every last thing in town, and there is n't the ghost of a show here worth seeing.

Moreover, I don't like New York, any

thought you were having me on. I thought it was your sacred front-family stuff (which I don't take quite so ponderously since my habitation enforced in the wilds), and the fact that their Woodlawn rubs ancient elbows with our Evergreens. In every burst of rapture I saw the fine Italian hand of match-making, and it left me cold. I remembered her, you see, as the flappiest sort of flapper, and I was n't prepared for a magazine cover! I apologize. Ninetyeight per cent., at a conservative estimate. But has n't my offensively good-looking

young brother Bill got his bold, black eye on her?

They were n't making much noise, so they had n't attracted a crowd. In fact,

you

Your note was served me as a side dish on my breakfast tray this morning. (Returned exiles do themselves very well, observe.) Please put this mad promptitude down to my credit, will you, and remember it sometime when I need clemency?

Not a ripple with D-, J- & Co. Nevertheless, with nothing to do, I 'm still too busy to go and see Cousin Lucy Chipperfield. That is my idea of nothing to do. A tolerable satisfactory parent in other respects, you have one horrid habit which darkens your children's lives: you can always discover some relative yearning to be called upon.

The weather is mild and gummy, and the voice of the street preacher is heard in the land. I can see three or four bunches from my window. I think I'll go down and get saved. I'll add a line to this after I've got salvation.

bum and one striking young aristocrat in evening dress. (Maternal pride should supply the name.) They had an asthmatic organ, which they had trundled through the street, at which the old woman sat and extracted mournful sounds. The boy divided a stern sermon evenly between us, and then the girl sang. She might have a voice, I dare say, but for the street work. It made you think of rough plush, someway. She was a pinched little thing, almost pretty. After she sang, the youth asked her to lead in prayer, and they all got down on their knees.

Greet for me my male parent, my rough-neck brothers, my pretty sisters-inlaw, and their more or less interesting offspring.

Tell Bill, in case he is n't quite clear about your saving Mary Lu for me, to remember Cain and Abel. It has been done.

Ask some idle member of the family to give you a hug.

From GWYNN.

December 1.

Why do you suppose I'm writing to you again so soon after my last letter? Because she asked me to-the Glory Girl, I mean.

I strolled down again to-night, and she was exhorting the bum and a dingy comrade to write to their mothers. I think her young eye brightened when it fell upon me, we have both always considered, have n't we, Muz, that I'm at my best in the soup-and-fish?—and she at once included me.

"Won't you?" she said, and the emphasis was n't flattering, somehow. It was as though, if she could persuade the likes of me, the rest of the world would be easy. I imagine there is to her an aura of worldly wickedness about evening dress. Don't you know how the villain in melodrama and movies always wears an open face and patent leathers?

I went down for a few minutes this evening. It has turned sharp, and the old woman was shivering; and the boy's eagle beak was red, and the girl looked congealed in her skimpy little coat. She asked the bum and me if we had written to our mothers, and the honors were mine, because I had.

Several men and women joined us, and it cheered the band up immensely, and they preached and played and sang and prayed with freshly kindled ardor. It is to be modestly admitted that I was something of a drawing card. My clothes, I mean. I fancy some of the new-comers thought it was a movie stunt.

Fed and warmed and fattened a bit, that girl would be very easy to look at. I thought at first they were of one family, but I don't believe she belongs. The fellow is awfully crabbed, and she seems rather afraid of him.

Well, I don't think I'll be lending the light of my countenance again. I 'm rather fed up on it. What I want is some regular people in a regular house. You 're a dear to delay the dance for me. I'll try to put up a bomb under D-, J& Co.

Chunks of love, Muddie.

GWYNN.

December 4. Things are moving a bit, my dear Muz. Had meetings yesterday and to-day, and D is ready for action, and I think we can bring J-round in short order.

To melt him, I permitted him to take me to a silly show last night.

I started to see "That Spring" to-night, --some one said it was near-good, but I foolishly stopped to listen to my heavenhunters for a moment, and it was all off. If it had n't been so beastly cold, I 'd be

that girl was all goose-flesh, and her teeth chattered like a telegraph ticker when she tried to pray.

The poor old bum had his poor old collar turned up around his poor old neck, and the others looked like Belgian refugees. Before I realized what I was doing, I 'd invited the whole crew into Man's for something hot. The bum accepted with loud acclaim, and the girl very prettily, but the old woman and the boy hung out. I said it was a very little thing for them to let me do for them after what they 'd done to me in getting me to write to my mother. (My poor, sick mother, I said, remembering your silly little ankle.)

That got them, and we trailed off. The boy trundled the organ, and the girl helped the old woman, and the bum and I brought up meekly in the rear.

I ordered piping-hot oyster stews all round to start off, and I wish you could have seen that girl come to life! She took off her hat, a foolish little tam-o'-shanter sort of thing that looked like the lid of our old nursery sugar-bowl, and she 's got loads of soft, downy-looking hair the color of unsalted butter. Her eyes are gray most of the time, but when she prays (or eats hot things), they get all black. Gee! I wish you could have seen 'em eat!

The boy is "James," and he 's a grouch. He calls the old lady "Mother," but the girl calls her "Mother Mason," so my hunch was right. She does n't belong. Her name is, inevitably, Mary. She's very still and shy, but she 's not crude. The old lady is in a nice, wholesome, small-town sort of way, but I did n't like the young chap's personality at all. His manner toward Mary is n't at all what it should be. But that's some more of my business, as Bill says.

It was n't a convivial occasion at all, but I had the satisfaction of seeing them trudge homeward pink without and glowing within.

Me to the poppy-fields!
Your good little good-doing son,
GWYNN.