empty tin cans and clinkers, and come to a wharf at which is tied up an ancient side-wheel steamer belonging to a bygone era of navigation. She shows no lights except a riding light. Her decks are empty.

We mount the gang-plank and pile into the dingy saloon. Kerosene-lamps are smoking in brackets along the walls, the window-shades are closely drawn. It is dank and stuffy in there, but the fellows begin to joke, referring to the old tub as the Mayflower. I have a strange feeling of unreality. This is not my idea of a departure at all. It is more like the aftermath of a Yale-Harvard game, the anticlimax of coming back in a crowded smoking-car after it is all over. The men compose themselves in various attitudes of discomfort and try to go to sleep. Many lie down on the floor. Three repose at full length on the table in the centre. I try unsuccessfully to think of something to say to Jack.

At the end of forty-five minutes we hear the gangplank being run in and there is a jingle from the engine-room. The wheels begin to turn and the old side-wheeler begins to strain and groan. From forward the transportation officer beckons us to join him and we ascend to the pilot-house, where we find seven or eight others. All is darkness, except for the aura round the binnacle and the glowing tips of the ciga

rettes.

We are about a quarter of a mile from shore and

moving quite rapidly. A hundred yards ahead in the starlight I can make out the narrow hull of a destroyer, which leaves a sharp, white wake in which we follow. Here and there are scattered lights-distant windows along the water-front. We light one cigarette after another, and I produce a couple of pounds of cake chocolate, which is quickly and gratefully consumed.

The time drags slowly. The shore fades out, then draws near again. Sometimes there are many lights; sometimes almost none. We pass a lighthouse. I recognize and then. Then I recognize everything at once. I know where we are. A faint pale line begins to show along the horizon and the side-wheeler staggers against the chop made by the tide running against the wind.

We turn, and just ahead I see the huge gray bulk of a converted German ocean-liner against a pier. The destroyer has swung away, running free of us in a wide circle. Behind us I now discover three other similarly convoyed side-wheelers. From the smokestacks of the transport the smoke is pouring in dense masses, but no lights gleam from her port-holes. She is simply a black blot against the sky-line. The officers say good-by to me; we leave the pilot-house and go back to the saloon.

"All right, boys!" says Jack. "A couple of hours more and you can get your phonographs going."

“Rather set my jaws going!" retorts a fat boy, and the crowd laughs good-naturedly.

against the wharf and the

The men pick up their rifles

The steamer bumps gang-plank is run out. and adjust their clothes. Jack and I lead the way on to the dock, on the opposite side of which yawns the black hole in the side of the transport. The company files off one boat and directly on to the other, where each man is handed a slip with the number and location of his berth.

The system is perfect; the embarkation takes place almost in silence.

"Well, father!"

Jack has turned to me and, smiling and happy, lays his arm on my shoulder. The moment has come, then. What shall I say? There was so much of encouragement and affection that I had carefully planned to put into my parting speech-how we were all so proud of him and would think of him every moment until his return; how, of course, he would returnthe war certainly would be over soon; and how we knew he'd do his duty; and so on.

He knows every-
There is nothing

How fatuous it would all sound! thing I want to say-perfectly well. to make a fuss about. Yet I can't let him go like that -just like that-without saying anything! While I hesitate, a private hurries up and, first saluting him, touches Jack upon the arm.

'Capt. Stanton, the colonel wants you!"

"All right!" answers Jack. He bends over quickly and touches his lips to my cheek.

'Good-by!" he exclaims cheerfully. "Kiss mother for me and Margery!"

"Good-by, Jack! I hope-never mind! Good-by, old fellow !-Oh, Jack-"

But he has gone.

The last company marches aboard and the slidingdoor is pulled to. The smoke is coming even thicker now from the transport's funnels, and there is a white froth rising from beneath her stern. Silently the hawsers are slipped. Over behind the city's castellated sky-line there is a yellow glow, and the water of the river is tinted with purple. A cold wind creeps round my ankles. It is chilly after the warm pilot-house.

Slowly the great leviathan separates herself from the wharf and backs away, out into midstream. Not a light is visible. Not a man is above deck. She looks like an interned empty German liner whose mooring is being shifted. Yet inside her black hulk ten thousand of the youth of America are starting on their great crusade for the maintenance of humanity—that freedom shall not perish from the earth.

VII

WHY JACK HAS GONE

"So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy * ." James ii: 12, 13.

Why have I sent my son across the seas to fight? Two years ago, on the Sunday following the torpedoing of the Lusitania, a party of sixteen people was assembled at luncheon in the Long Island country house of a distinguished New York lawyer. Inevitably the sole topic of conversation was the attitude the United States should adopt toward the German Government, which had thus wantonly murdered so many helpless American men, women, and children. Of those present several were jurists of wide reputation or persons of more than ordinary intelligence and standing in the community. After a lengthy, general discussion of that barbaric act, I remember saying that I wished that our government would immediately declare war upon Germany or, at least, sever diplomatic relations pending what reparation was possible and adequate guarantees that such methods of warfare should be discontinued. To my surprise there was little echo