special tracks to the place
and stood ready to receive the sea streaming towards them. Massed
motor-cars waited beyond the trolleys for their owners, officials of the
works. The girl in blue serge, standing at a special door of a special
building counted, keeping watch meantime of the crowd, the cars. A
hundred and twenty-five she made it; it came to her mind that State
Street in Albany on a day of some giant parade was not unlike this, not
less a throng. The girl, who was secretary to an assistant manager, was
used to the sight, but it was an impressive sight and she was
impressionable and found each Saturday's pageant a wonder. The pageant
was more interesting it may be because it focussed always on one
figure--and here he was.

"Did you wait, long?" he asked as he came up, broad-shouldered and
athletic of build, boyish and honest of face, as good looking a young
American as one may see in any crowd.

"I was early." She smiled up at him as they swung off towards the
trolleys; her eyes flashed a glance which said frankly that she found
him satisfactory to look upon.

They sped past others, many others, and made a trolley car and a seat
together, which was the goal. They always made it, every Saturday, yet
it was always a game. Exhilarated by the winning of the game they
settled into the scat for the three-quarters of an hour run; it was
quite a worth-while world, the smiling glances said one to the other.

The girl gazed, not seeing them particularly, at the slower people
filling the seats and the passage of the car. Then: "Oh," she spoke,
"what was it you were going to tell me?"

The man's face grew sober, a bit troubled. "Well," he said, "I've
decided. I'm going to enlist."

She was still for a second. Then: "I think that's splendid," she brought
out. "Splendid. Of course, I knew you'd do it. It's the only thing that
could be. I'm glad."

"Yes," the man spoke slowly. "It's the only thing that could be. There's
nothing to keep me. My mother's dead. My father's husky and not old and
my sisters are with him. There's nobody to suffer by my going."

"N-no," the girl agreed. "But--it's the fine thing to do just the same.
You're thirty-two you see, and couldn't be drafted. That makes it rather
great of you to go."

"Well," the man answered, "not so very great, I suppose, as it's what
all young Americans are doing. I rather think it's one of those things,
like spelling, which are no particular credit if you do th