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Show nT?!!!'!:!l!li;St!!!::f ll!!:i!IIIIIIIII!IlltllIltlll!IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!n!II !!t!IIIM!llMllinilillllllT!!3j!l!Ilili;Min!!lIIIIIII!lilIII!!l! - I Ramsey Milholland I f By BOOTH TARKINGTON 1 E. Copyright b, Dccbieday, Page 5 Company 3 lifuidiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniuifiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiuiii if mil 1111 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 : n : ? 1 1 1 n ; ; : i : 1 1 1 : : 1 11 1 mil iiumiuiuiiiiiiitimHiitn; Iiecan.se he'd jollied you about this pacifist Bluff, and then " "No!" she suid, sharply. "I'm not thinking of his having agreed with me und fooling me about It. He Just Wanted to make a pleasant Impression on a girl, nnd suid nnyllilng lie thought would please her. I don't care whether he does things like that or nor. What I CSre about is that the principle didn't reach him and thai he mocked It! I don't care about a petty treachery treach-ery to me, personally, but I " Fraternal loyally could not quite brook this. "Brother Colburn Is a perfectly per-fectly honor'ble man," suid Uamsey, solemnly. "lie Is one of the most honor'ble men In this " "Of course !" she cried. "Oh, can't I iiuike you understand that I'm not condemning Dim for a little flattery to me? I don't care two straws for his Showing Hint I didn't Influence him. lie doesn't Interest me, please understand." under-stand." Ramsey was altogether perplexed. "Well, I don't see what makes you go for him so hard, then." "I don't." "But you said he was trench" "I don't condemn him for It," she Insisted, In-sisted, despairingly. "Don't you see the difference? I'm not condemning anybody; I'm only lamenting." "What about?" "About all of you that want war!" "My golly!" Ramsey exclaimed. "You don't think those Dutchmen were right to drown babies and " "No! I think they were ghastly murderers! I think they were detesta-ble detesta-ble and fiendish and monstrous and " "Well, then, my goodness! What do you want?" "I don't want war!" "Yon don't?" "I want Christianity:!" she cried. "I can't think of me Germans without hating them, and so today, when all the world is hating them, I keep myself my-self from thinking of them as much as I can. Already half the world is full of war ; you want to go to war to make things right, but it won't; it will only make more war I" "Well, I" "Don't you see what you've done, you boys?" she said. "Don't you see CHAPTER IX. Continued. 11 Most uncomfortably astonished, I'Hii.sey took Ids bands out of his pockets, pock-ets, picked a leaf from a lilac bush he-tilde he-tilde the path, and put the stem of tbe lenf seriously Into a corner of Ills rOOOth, before finding anything to say. "Well well, all right," he finally responded. re-sponded. "I'll tell you If It's anything any-thing I know about." "You know about It," Bald Dorn. "That Is. you certainly do If you were (it your 'frat' meeting Inst night. Were you?" "Yes. I was there," Ramsey answered, an-swered, wondering what In the world she wanted to know, though he supposed sup-posed vaguely that It must be something some-thing about Colburn, whom he had BeVeraJ times seen walking with her. "Of course I couldn't tell you much," he added, with an afterthought, "You see. ft, good deal Hint goes on at a 'frat' meeting Isn't supposed to be talked about " "Yes," she said, smiling faintly, though with a satire that missed him. "I've I, con n member of a sorority since September, and I think I have an idea of what COUlU he told or not told. Suppose we walk on. If you don't mind. My question needn't embarrass you." Nevertheless, as they slowly went on together, Ramsey was embarrassed. He felt "queer." They had known each other so long; In a way had Shared so much, sitting dally for years near each other and undergoing the same outward experiences; they had almost "grown up together," yet this WO s the flrsl time they had ever talked together or walked together. "Well " he said. "If you wa-nt to nsk anything it's all right for me to tell you well, I just as soon, I guess." "Jt has nothing to do with the secret proceedings of your f fat,' " said Dora, primly. "What 1 want to ask about has been talked of all over the place today. Everyone has been saying It was your 'frat' that sent the first telegram tele-gram to members of the government offering support in case of war with Germany. They say you didn't even wait until today, but sent off a message mes-sage last night. What I wanted to ask you was whether this story is true or not?" "Why, yos," said Ramsey, mildly. "Thai's what we did." She uttered an exclamation, a sound of grief and of suspicion confirmed. "Ah! I was afraid so!" "'Afraid so?' What's the matter?" tie asked, and because she seemed excited ex-cited and troubled, he found himself not quite so embarrassed as he had been at first ; for some reason her agitation agi-tation made him feel easier. "What was wrong about thai?" "Oh, it's all so shocking and wicked wick-ed and mistaken !" she cried. "Even the faculty has been doing it, and half the oilier 'fiats' and sororities! And It was yours that started it." "Yes, we did," he said, thoroughly puzzled. "We're the oldest 'frat' here, nnd of course" he chuckled modestly 1 "of course we think we're the best. Do you mean you believe we ought to've sat back and let somebody else start It?" "Oh, no !" she answered, vehemently. "Nobody ought to have started it ! That's the trouble; don't yon see? If nobody had started it none of it might hnve happened. The rest mightn't have caught It. It mightn't have got Into their heads. A war thought Is the most contagious thought In the world, but If it can be kept from starting, it can be kept from being contagious, it's just when people have got into an emotional state, or a state of smouldering smoul-dering rage, that everybody ought to he so terribly careful not to think war thoughts or make war speeches or send war telegrams! I thought oh, 1 was so sure I'd convinced Mr. Colburn Col-burn of all this, the lct time we talked of it ! He seemed to understand, under-stand, and I was sure he agreed with me." She bit her lip. "He was only pretending I see that now!" "I guess he must 'a' been." said Ramsey, with admirable simplicity. "He didn't talk about anything like that last night. He was as much for It as anybody." "I've no doubt !" Uamsey made bold to look at her out of the side of his eye, and as she was gazing tensely forward he continued contin-ued his observation for some time. She was obviously controlling agitation, almost al-most controlling tears, which seemed to threaten her very wide-open eyes; for those now fully grown and noticeable notice-able eye-winkers of hers were subject In fluctuations indicating such a threat. She looked "hurt," and Uamsey Uam-sey was touched. There was something human about ber, then, after all. And If lie had put his feeling into words at the moment, he would have said that he guessed maybe he could stand this ole girl, for a few minutes sometime" better than he'd always thought he could. '"iVell," Ik Maid, "Colburn prob'ly wouldn't wain to hurt your feelings 01 anything. Colburn " "He? He didn't.' I haven't the fomrcst persons, interest n what he did." "Oh 1" said Ramsey. ' Well, eir ise me I thought prob'ly you were sire Uamsey was roused to become argumentative. argu-mentative. "I don't see where you get the Idea. Colburn isn't that way. and hack at school there wasn't a single hoy that was anything like that." "What !" She stopped, and turned suddenly to face him. "What's the matter?" he said, stopping, stop-ping, too. Something he said had startled her, evidently. "How can you say such a thing?" she cried. "You love to fight !" "Me?" "You do! You love fighting. You always have loved fighting." He wns dumfounded. "Why, I never had a fight In my life !" She cried out In protest of such prevarication. pre-varication. "Well, I never did," he Insisted, mildly. "Why, you had a fight about me!" "No, I didn't." "With Wesley Bender!" Ramsey chuckled; "That wasn't a fight !" "It wasn't?" "Nothing like one. We were just guyin' him about about geltin' slicked up, kind of, because he sat In front of you ; and he hit me with his book strap and I chased him off. Gracious, no; that wasn't a fight !" "But you fought LinskI only last fall." Ramsey chuckled again. "That wasn't even as much like a fight as the one wllh Wesley. I just told this LinskI I was goin' to give him a punch in t lie sn I just told him to look out because I was goin' to hit him; and then I did It, and waited to see if he wanted to do anything about it, and he didn't. That's all there was to It, and it wasn't any more like fighting than than feeding chickens is." She laughed dolefully. "It seems to me rather more like it than that!" "Well, It wasn't." They had uegun to walk on again, and Ramsey was aware that they had passed the "frat house," where Ii Is dinner was probably growing Cold. He was aware of this, but not sharply or insistently. Curiously enough, he did not Hunk about it. He had begun to find something pleasant in the odd interview, in-terview, and in walking beside a girl, even though the girl was Dora Yocum. He. made no attempt to account to himself for anything so peculiar. For a while they went slowly together, to-gether, not speaking, and without destination, des-tination, though Ramsey vaguely took it for granted that Dora was going somewhere. But she wasn't. They emerged from the part of the small town closely built about the university and came out upon a bit of parked land overlooking the river; and here Dora's steps slowed to an indeterminate indeter-minate halt near a bench beneath a maple tree. "I think I'll stay here a while," she said ; and as he made no response, she asked : "Hadn't you better be going back to your 'frat house' for your dinner? din-ner? I didn't mean for you to come out of your way with me; I only wanted want-ed to got an answer to my question. You'd better be running back." "Well" He stood irresolute, not sure that he wanted his dinner just then. It would have amazed him to face the fact deliberately de-liberately that perhaps he preferred being with Dora Yocum to eating. However, he faced no such fact, nor any fact, but lingered. "Well " he said again. "You'd better go." "I guess I can get my dinner pretty near any time. I don't" He uad a thought. "Did you " "Did I what?" "Did you have your dinner before I met you?" "No." "Well, aren't you " She shook her head. "I don't want any." "Why not?" "I don't think people have very much appetite today and yesterday," she said, with the hint of a sad laugh, "all over America." "No ; I guess that's so." "It's too lerrible!" she said. "I can't sit and eat when I think of the Lusitania of all those poor, poor people peo-ple strangling In the water " "No; I guess nobody can eat much, If they think about that." "And of what It's going to bring, if we let it," she went on. "As If this killing weren't enough, we want to add our lulling! Oh, that's the most terrible ter-rible tiling of all the thing It makes within us! Don't you understand?" She turned to him appeallngly. and he felt queerer than ever. Dusk had fallen. Where they stood, under the young-leaved maple tree, there was but a faint lingering of afterglow, and in this mystery her face glimmered wan anil sweet; so that Ramsey, just then, was like one who discovers an old pan. used in tiie Kitchen, to be made of chased silver. "Well, I don't feel niux'h like d.nnc-r rig'i. now,'! he said. -A- we could sit aere awhile on tk. oe-ieh, prob'b (TO BE CONTtKriKD.) Right End First. niggard Of course It is possible foi a man to acquire ease and plenty. Mason Ah. hut not in the ordei named.--Londou Answers. 1 There Was Something Human About Her, Then, After All. what you've done with your absurd: telegram? That started the rest: they thought they all had to send telegrams like that." "Well, the faculty" "Even they mightn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the first one. Vengeance is the most terriliJe thought ; once you put it into people's minds that they ought to have it, it runs away with them." "Well, it isn't mostly vengeance we're after, at all. There's a lot more to it than just getting even with " She did not heed him. "You're all blind ! You don't see what you're doing do-ing ; you don't even see what you've done to this peaceful place here. You've filled it full of thoughts of fury and killing and massacre " "Why, no," said Uamsey. "It was those Dutch did that to us; and, besides, be-sides, there's more to it than you " "No, there isn't." she Interrupted. "It's just the old brutal spirit that nations na-tions inherit from the time they were ojdy tribes; it's the tribe spirit, and au eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's those things and the love of fighting men have always loved to fight. Civilization hasn't taken it out of them; men still have the brute in them that loves to fight !" "I don't think so." said Ramsey. "Americans don't love to fight ; I don't know about other countries, but we don't. Of course, here and there. thws some fellow thnt likes to hunt around for scraps, but 1 never saw more than three or four in my life that acted that way. Of course a football tam ofteu has a scrapper or two on It, nut that's different." "No," she said. "I think you al' really love to fight." |