ou!" Nancy received the word "introduce" as
a surgical case receives the initial injection of morphine. The first
step had been taken, and nothing could save her. "As for you, Tom, your
lecture room's over there, and I'll get the foreman to introduce you."

"Don't think of it," said Tom quickly, "I'll just introduce myself; get
to be one of them, you know what I mean. Just one of the boys."

"Well, Miss Whitman, let's you and I get to be just one of the girls,"
tittered Leofwin.

"I think we might as well go in," said Nancy without noticing Leofwin's
jest, which appeared singularly hollow.

"You're sure you don't want some one to start you off, Tom?" asked Bob.

Tom was certain of it; and before entering his room, he waited until
Nancy's party had disappeared around the corner. He then opened the door
and, going over to a man who was ruminating vacantly upon a huge chunk
of bread, sat down. "There's going to be some sort of lecture here,
today, isn't there?" he asked.

"I dunno," replied the man.

"Yeah, there is," spoke up a hand nearby. "I seen it on a sign this
morning. Some guy from the college."

"That's what I thought," said Tom. "I thought I'd just come in and see
what he had to say. Can't stay very long, though," he added, looking at
his watch. Then after a pause, "Pretty nice place you got here."

"Oh, it's good enough, I guess."

The room was a large one, filled with three or four dozen tables bearing
complicated-looking machinery. There were twenty or thirty men sitting
around solemnly chewing their food.

"Pretty slow now, isn't it?" asked Tom.

"Yeah, they laid off about a hundred last week."

"This laying-off stuff would have gone bigger a couple of years ago--in
the army--wouldn't it?"

"I'll say it would."

"Have a cigarette?" said Tom. "What outfit were you in?"

The prospect of free cigarettes and army talk, which already in less
than three years had taken on a romantic glow, attracted the other men,
who, as they finished their lunches, came up and joined the circle. Tom
was holding forth in the centre; and when Bob Whitman glanced in on his
way home he could see that Tom, by making his talk informal, was getting
it across in great style.

Once, during the conversation, Providence seemed to offer an opportunity
of bringing in his lecture in such a way that no one would guess he was
giving it.

His conscience bothered him a little, and he plunged ahead. One of the
men told how his