ng in such
antics a bit of a freak, a reproach to his father, a failure of his
life.

Even so, he had led the way into the house and things had been just as
he remembered them: the old furniture, pictures crowding one another all
over the walls, on the unused grand piano--Marines in Vera Cruz, Marines
in China, Marines in Alaska, in the Marianas, in Japan, at the Panama
canal; Marines, Marines, Marines, wherever one looked, in ghostly
parade. No, nothing had changed. It had been mainly jealously which had
caused him to rebel against becoming another Marine, the first wedge
which had driven him and his father apart.

"What are you doing now, padre?" he had asked.

"You've seen it. Nothing. Just puttering around. They've made me
commander of the National Guard over here," and with a contemptuous
snort, "--a sinecure; might as well have given me a bunch of tin
soldiers to play with. What brought you here?"

Glad to change the subject Lee had told about Australia, had mentioned
The Brain and the possibility of joining it. His father had not been
pleased.

"Heard of it," he had grumbled. "Shows how the country is going to the
dogs. Now they need machines to do their thinking with. If their own
brains were gas they couldn't back a car out of the garage. So you're
mixed up with that outfit; well--how about a drink?"

"Rather," he had answered, feeling the need for washing down a
bitterness; thinking, too, that it might break the ice between him and
his father.

And then there was that painful moment when they had stood, glasses in
hand and remembered....

The selfsame situation fifteen years ago as the Bomb fell upon
Hiroshima. He had been on convalescence furlough. They had been alone
when the news came and there had been a drink between them just as now.
And after the announcer stopped he had cried out hysterically like a
child in a nightmare.

"Those fools, that's the end of civilization, that's no longer war."

"Shut up," his father had shouted, "how dare you insult the Commander in
Chief to my face. Get out of here and _stay_ out."

A highball glass had crashed against the floor. And that had been the
end. He hadn't returned after the war.

Yes, it was most unfortunate that now, after so many years, they should
read that memory in their faces; that it was only the glasses and not
the minds which clicked.

They had put them down awkwardly with frozen smiles on their lips and
his father had said:

"Sorry