"Jupiter! There's a programme!" cried Mr. Tristram. "Certainly, all that
takes money, especially the wife; unless indeed she gives it, as mine
did. And what's the story? How have you done it?"

Newman had pushed his hat back from his forehead, folded his arms, and
stretched his legs. He listened to the music, he looked about him at the
bustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses and the babies.
"I have worked!" he answered at last.

Tristram looked at him for some moments, and allowed his placid eyes to
measure his friend's generous longitude and rest upon his comfortably
contemplative face. "What have you worked at?" he asked.

"Oh, at several things."

"I suppose you're a smart fellow, eh?"

Newman continued to look at the nurses and babies; they imparted to the
scene a kind of primordial, pastoral simplicity. "Yes," he said at last,
"I suppose I am." And then, in answer to his companion's inquiries,
he related briefly his history since their last meeting. It was an
intensely Western story, and it dealt with enterprises which it will be
needless to introduce to the reader in detail. Newman had come out
of the war with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in this
case--without invidious comparisons--had lighted upon shoulders amply
competent to bear it. But though he could manage a fight, when need was,
Newman heartily disliked the business; his four years in the army
had left him with an angry, bitter sense of the waste of precious
things--life and time and money and "smartness" and the early freshness
of purpose; and he had addressed himself to the pursuits of peace