ot amuse me. You can take Gerald with you, if you will. I have nothing
to say to Gerald just now. He is in my good books. Is there anything
I can do for you, Gerald? Your allowance, for instance--a trifling
increase or an advance? I am in a generous humour."

"Then grant me what I begged for the other day," the boy answered
quickly. "Let me go to Sandhurst. I could enter my name next week for
the examinations, and I could pass to-morrow."

Mr. Fentolin tapped the table thoughtfully with his forefinger.

"A little ungrateful, my dear boy," he declared, "a little ungrateful
that, I think. Your confidence in yourself pleases me, though. You think
you could pass your examinations?"

"I did a set of papers last week," the boy replied. "On the given
percentages I came out twelfth or better. Mr. Brown assured me that I
could go in for them at any moment. He promised to write you about it
before he left."

Mr. Fentolin nodded gently.

"Now I come to think of it, I did have a letter from Mr. Brown," he
remarked. "Rather an impertinence for a tutor, I thought it. He devoted
three pages towards impressing upon me the necessity of your adopting
some sort of a career."

"He wrote because he thought it was his duty," the boy said doggedly.

"So you want to be a soldier," Mr. Fentolin continued musingly. "Well,
well, why not? Our picture galleries are full of them. There has been a
Fentolin in every great battle for the last five hundred years. Sailors,
too--plenty of them--and just a few diplomatists. Brave fellows! Not
one, I fancy," he added, "like me--not one condemned to pass their days
in a perambulator. You are a fine fellow, Gerald--a regular Fentolin.
Getting on for six feet, aren't you?"

"Six feet two, sir."

"A very fine fellow," Mr. Fentolin repeated. "I am not so sure about the
army, Gerald. You see, there are some people who say, like your American
friend, that we are even now almost on the brink of war."

"All the more reason for me to hurry," the boy begged.

Mr. Fentolin closed his eyes.

"Don't!" he insisted. "Have you ever stopped to think what war
means--the war you speak of so lightly? The suffering, the misery of
it! All the pageantry and music and heroism in front; and behind, a
blackened world, a trail of writhing corpses, a world of weeping women
for whom the sun shall never rise again. Ugh! An ugly thing war, Gerald.
I am not sure that you are not better at home here. Why not practise
golf a