In June, 1917, Leon Kantor, answering that rat-a-tat-tat, enlisted.

In November, honed by the interim of training to even a new leanness,
and sailing-orders heavy and light in his heart, Lieutenant Kantor, on
two days' home-leave, took leave of home, which can be crudest when it
is tenderest.

Standing there in the expensive, the formal, the enormous French parlor
of his up-town apartment de luxe, from not one of whose chairs would his
mother's feet touch floor, a wall of living flesh, mortared in blood,
was throbbing and hedging him in.

He would pace up and down the long room, heavy with the faces of those
who mourn, with a laugh too ready, too facetious, in his fear for them.

"Well, well, what is this, anyway, a wake? Where's the coffin? Who's
dead?"

His sister-in-law shot out her plump, watch-encrusted wrist. "Don't,
Leon!" she cried. "Such talk is a sin! It might come true."

"Rosie-posy-butter-ball," he said, pausing beside her chair to pinch her
deeply soft cheek. "Cry-baby-roly-poly, you can't shove me off in a
wooden kimono that way."

From his place before the white-and-gold mantel, staring steadfastly at
the floor tiling, Isadore Kantor turned suddenly, a bit whiter and older
at the temples.

"I don't get your comedy, Leon."