American again; you'll just help give
him knickknacks so he won't rebel against his slavery."

The girl's eyes flashed.

"Mr. Kasker," she said sternly, "I consider that speech disloyal and
traitorous. Men are being jailed every day for less!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I believe that is true, and it proves what a free country this
is--does it not? Mr. Wilson's democracy is the kind that won't allow
people to express their opinions, unless they agree with him. If I say
I will stand by the American constitution, they will put me in jail."

Mary Louise fairly gasped. She devoutly wished she had never approached
this dreadful man. She felt ashamed to breathe the same air with him.
But she hated to retreat without a definite display of her disgust at
his perfidious utterances. Drawing the circular from her bag she spread
it before him on his desk and said:

"Read that!"

He just glanced at it, proving he knew well its wording. Mary Louise
was watching him closely.

"Well, what about it?" he asked brusquely.

"It expresses your sentiments, I believe."

He turned upon her suspiciously.

"You think I wrote it?" he demanded.

"My thoughts are my own," retorted Mary Louise.

Kasker's frown deepened.

"Your thoughts may get you into trouble, my girl," he said slowly. "Let
me tell you this: However much I hate this war, I'm not fighting it
publicly. To you I have spoken in private--just a private conversation.
The trouble with me is, I talk too much; I don't know enough to keep my
mouth shut. I guess I'll never learn that. I ain't a hypocrite, and I
ain't a pacifist. I say the United States must win this war because it
has started the job, and right or wrong, must finish it. I guess we
could beat the whole world, if we had to. But I ain't fool enough to
say that all they do down at Washington is right, 'cause I know it
ain't. But I'm standing by the flag. My boy is standing by the flag,
and he'll fight as well as any in the whole army to keep the flag
flying over this great republic. By and by we'll get better
congressmen; the ones we got now are accidents. But in spite of all
accidents--and they're mostly our own fault--I'm for America first,
last and all the time. That's Jake Kasker. I don't like the Germans and
I don't like the English, for Jake Kasker is a George Washington
American. What are you doing, girl?" he suddenly asked with a change of
tone.

"I'm putting down that speech in shorthand in my not