hance."

"You mean--" said Hilda.

"Certainly, I do," replied the banker. "I mean that we're going to bring
that kid up as good as if war was a dream. We're going to make him glad
he's alive. He's going back to America with me. Will you come?"

"Why," said Hilda, her eyes filling, "what do you mean?"

"I mean that I need you. Show me how to put this thing, that we've been
doing here, into New York. It's a different world after the war. You
have often said it. America mustn't be behind. I want to catch up with
these Red Cross chauffeurs. I want our crowd in Wall Street to be in on
the fun. Come on and help."

"I don't know what to say," began Hilda. "I shall miss you so. The boys
in the ward will miss you, the babies will miss you." She laughed. "I
can't come just now. There is so much work, and worse ahead."

"Later, you will come?" he pleaded. He turned to the child who was
wielding his bottle as a hammer on the foot of the bed, and lifted him
shoulder high.

"Remember," he said, as the bottle was thumped on his head, "'Pervyse'
and I will be waiting."

The bottle fell on the floor, and the outraged glass splintered, and
"Pervyse's" supper went trickling down the cracks.

"You see," said the banker, "we are helpless without you."

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and inconsistent
hyphenation. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced
quotes and the like) have been corrected. Corrections [in brackets]
in the text are noted below:

page 49: added quote

of it," objected Barkleigh. ["]When the danger is so close
you can see it,

page 63: typo corrected

inch. So the little houshold[household] had removed
themselves from the famous cellar

page 164: typo corrected

But no indignity of the roadway can long withold[withhold]
him from his portion of peace, and

page 185: typo corrected

its utmost, and a partial unconsciousnes[unconsciousness]
was spreading over troubled

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