prominent figure in the Middleville battery, in those seemingly long
past years since before the war.

"Why didn't Dick go into the service? Why didn't the draft get him?"

"He had poor eyesight, and his father needed him at the iron works."

"Poor eyesight!" ejaculated Lane. "He was the best shot in the
battery--the best hunter among the boys. Well, that's funny."

"Daren, there are people who called Dick Swann a slacker," returned
Lorna, as if forced to give this information. "But I never saw that it
hurt him. He's rich now. His uncle left him a million, and his father
will leave him another. And I'll say it's the money people want these
days."

The materialism so pregnant in Lorna's half bitter reply checked
Lane's further questioning. He edged closer to the stove, feeling a
little cold. A shadow drifted across the warmth and glow of his mind.
At home now he was to be confronted with a monstrous and insupportable
truth--the craven cowardice of the man who had been eligible to
service in army or navy, and who had evaded it. In camp and trench and
dug-out he had heard of the army of slackers. And of all the vile and
stark profanity which the war gave birth to on the lips of miserable
and maimed soldiers, that flung on the slackers was the worst.

"I've got a date to go to the movies," said Lorna, and she bounced out
of the kitchen into the hall singing:

"Oh by heck