all blazonry
and decoration, an art which would attain its objective by the simplest,
most perfect adjustment of means to ends.

And Anthony was proud of that hidden wonder locked behind the door of
the workshop in the orchard. He realized that his son Nicholas had taken
part in a great and important thing. He was prouder of Nicholas than he
had been of Michael.

And Michael knew it.

Nicky's brains could be used for the service of his country.

But Michael's? Anthony said to himself that there wasn't any sense--any
sense that he could endure to contemplate--in which Michael's brains
could be of any use to his country. When Anthony thought of the
mobilization of his family for national service, Michael and Michael's
brains were a problem that he put behind him for the present and refused
to contemplate. There would be time enough for Michael later.

Anthony was perfectly well aware of his own one talent, the talent which
had made "Harrison and Harrison" the biggest timber-importing firm in
England. If there was one thing he understood it was organization. If
there was one thing he could not tolerate it was waste of good material,
the folly of forcing men and women into places they were not fit for. He
had let his eldest son slip out of the business without a pang, or with
hardly any pang. He had only taken Nicholas into it as an experiment.
It was on John that he relied to inherit it and carry it farther.

As a man of business he approved of the advertised formula: "Business as
Usual." He understood it to mean that the duty which England expected
every man to do was to stay in the place he was most fitted for and to
go where he was most wanted. Nothing but muddle and disaster could
follow any departure from this rule.

It was fitting that Frances and Veronica should do Red Cross work. It
was fitting that Dorothy should help to organize the relief of the
Belgium refugees. It was fitting that John should stay at home and carry
on the business, and that he, Anthony, should enlist when he had settled
John into his place. It was, above all, fitting that Nicky should devote
himself to the invention and manufacture of armaments. He could not
conceive anything more wantonly and scandalously wasteful than a system
that could make any other use of Nicky's brains. He thanked goodness
that, with a European War upon us, such a system, if it existed, would
not be allowed to live a day.

As for Michael, it might be fitting la