"Goodnight!"

Neither of them really doubted for a moment that war was coming.
It was in the air. The attack on the little shop that they had
helped to avert was only one of many, although there was no real
rioting in London. Such scenes were simply the result of
excitement, and no great harm was done anywhere. But the
tension of which such attacks were the result was everywhere. For
the next three days there was very little for anyone to do.

Everyone was waiting. France and Germany were at war; the news
came that the Germans had invaded Luxembourg, and were crossing
the Belgian border.

And then, on Tuesday night, came the final news. England had
declared war. For the moment the news seemed to stun everyone.
It had been expected, and still it came as a surprise. But then
London rose to the occasion. There was no hysterical cheering and
shouting; everything was quiet. Harry Fleming saw a wonderful
sight a whole people aroused and determined. There was no foolish
boasting; no one talked of a British general eating his Christmas
dinner in Berlin. But even Dick Mercer, excitable and erratic as
he had always been, seemed to have undergone a great change.

"My father's going to the war," he told Harry on Wednesday
morning. He spoke very seriously. "He was a captain in the Boer
War, you know, so he knows something about soldiering. He thinks
he'll be taken, though he's a little older than most of the men
who'll go. He'll be an officer, of course. And he says I've got