athering," asserted himself. He put
his hand on Stransky's shoulder. It was a strong though slim hand that
looked as if it had been trained to do the work of two hands in the
process of its owner's own transformation. Thus the old sergeant had
seen a general remonstrate with a brave veteran who had been guilty of
bad conduct in Africa. The old colonel gasped at such a subversion of
the dignity of rank. He saw the army going to the devil. But young
Dellarme, watching with eager curiosity, was sensible of no familiarity
in the act. It all depended on how such a thing was done, he was
thinking.

"We all have minutes when we are more or less anarchists," said Lanstron
in the human appeal of one man to another. "But we don't want to be
judged by one of those minutes. I got a hand mashed up for a mistake
that took only a second. Think this over to-night before you act. Then,
if you are of the same opinion, go to the colonel and tell him so. Come,
why not?"

"All right, sir, you're so decent about it!" grumbled Stransky, taking
his place in the ranks.

Hep-hep-hep! the regiment started on its way, with Grandfather Fragini
keeping at his grandson's side.

"Makes me feel young again, but it's darned solemn beside the Hussars,
with their horses' bits a-jingling. Times have certainly
changed--officers' hands in their pockets, saying 'if you don't mind' to
a man that's insulted the flag! Kicking ain't good enough for that
traitor! Ought to hang him--yes, sir, hang and draw him!"

Lanstron watched the marching column for a time.

"Hep-hep-hep! It's the brown of the infantry that counts in the end," he
mused. "I liked that wall-eyed giant. He's all man!"

Then his livening glance swept the heavens inquiringly. A speck in the
blue, far away in the realms of atmospheric infinity, kept growing in
size until it took the form of the wings with which man flies. The plane
volplaned down with steady swiftness, till its racing shadow lay large
over the landscape for a few seconds before it rose again with beautiful
ease and precision.

"Bully for you, Etzel!" Lanstron thought, as he started back to the
aeroplane station. "You belong in the corps. We shall not let you return
to your regiment for a while. You've a cool head and you'd charge a
church tower if that were the orders."

VIII

THANKS TO A BUMBLEBEE

"Has he changed much?" Mrs. Galland asked, when she learned that Marta
had seen Westerling.

"Jove has reached