"Oh, well, stick around with the bunch, then, and listen to 'em talk."

Terry stuck. He liked those studios and smelly restaurants which seem inevitable to the discussion of burning themes; the eating, smoking, drinking of unnatural red wine from surreptitious teacups, and such faint aura of bohemianism as is compatible with subways, syndicated literature, magazine art, and prohibition. And there was, off and on, some verbal grappling with the eternal problem of evening up those human conditions that have, so far, resisted with such remarkable success all similar attempts at being evened up. He also accompanied Larrimer to various meetings.

It cannot be said that much progress was made, and, although Terry referred to Brothers of the Faith as "we," he continued to wonder what the deuce it was jolly well all about, also why he didn't feel himself becoming a Socialist, whatever that might be. It began to seem that the time might be long before he could return to Sylvia in the irresistible guise of a man with a mission.

Then the little god that makes plots, or, rather, history, took a hand. He

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would make a slick bit of advertising. It might amuse them, at least for an evening, to have a perfectly good duke wave the red flag with them. He assumed him to be as ardent a supporter of the great cause as Larrimer and his associates. Their ideas, he knew, differed

somewhat from his own, but the cause was the cause and a surface cordiality at least was maintained among all factions. So it came about that Vlasak invited Larrimer to attend his Fourth Avenue meeting and bring his friend. He made a point of it, and Larrimer, after a moment's hesitation, carelessly accepted.

Sylvia was bored, She was not accustomed to being taken at her word. She had been she sought for a word snippy to Terry. And now Terry was being snippy to her, or, rather, he wasn't being anything. He simply ceased to be at all so far as she was concerned. This was not en règle. He should have clamored for restoration to her favor, been grieved, importunate, and faithful. It was only what was due her from any

man.

There were other disillusions. A week after his visit to Highcrest Digby Porterfield returned. He came back as one inspired. There was new radiance in his dedicated eyes. He trembled upon the verge of ecstasy. And in the rose-garden, when the sun had set and one white star hung in the pearly sky, he produced a kodak picture.

"She has accepted me," he said, tremblingly, "and I hastened to you-with your gift of sympathy-"

Sylvia saw the picture of a thin girl in bloomers. She had short hair and was chopping wood.

"At their camp," Porterfield explained, with deep emotion, "where she's working up her thesis on 'Grecian Ideals of Democracy in the Age of Pericles.'

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At this moment Sylvia's mental attitude underwent an abrupt and curious change. An intense dislike for all matters relating to social reform rushed upon her, a complete indifference to the future of the proletariat. And as the days passed she became aware of reviving interest in foreign courts and aristocracies. Life in gray battlemented castles presented a renewed allure. She wondered what had become of Terry.

On the afternoon of Vlasak's meeting on Fourth Avenue it was conveyed to Dickie Batemen casually that if he ran across Terry he might bring him out to Highcrest for the week-end. Dickie had not seen Terry for some time. He tried to get hold of him for dinner, but could not reach him by telephone. Batemen dined alone, and after dinner turned his

car southward and ran down to Stuyvesant Square. Here he learned that Larrimer and his pupil had taken dinner somewhere together and were going afterward to the Fourth Avenue meeting.

For a moment he stood on the sidewalk, debating. It was an enticing summer night, heavy down here with dust and hot city smells, but to be found vast and dewy, a few miles cut of the city. Particularly did the prospect of a Fourth Avenue meeting not appeal to him. Still he wanted to see Terry. The meeting would not be long and perhaps he could get him and Larrimer away early for a spin up the river.

He decided for Fourth Avenue, but when he arrived there almost regretted having done so. The room was packed, the heat stifling, and the air thick with tobacco smoke. There were no seats. Dickie stood up near the door leaning against the wall. To his intense amusement, Larrimer and Terry were sitting on the platform. Larrimer, too, it seemed, was amused. He wore his lazy half-smile and smoked a pipe. Terry, on the contrary, quite obviously sulked. Bateman wondered what was up. He knew it was not embarrassment. Terry was too utterly unconscious for embarrassment and sitting on the platform would in no way disturb him.

Some one was making a speech-a small, ill-appearing man who spoke with a strong, nameless accent. But he was fluent, intelligible, and made his elemental arguments clear.

"And why have they got what they got? What right have they got to got it? Where did they get it? They got it from us. From me and you and our brothers everywhere. We made it for them with our work. All the time since the beginning of the world we have been making it Christmas presents to the rich!" (Applause.) "How will we get it back off them-by smiles?" He himself smiled derisively, exhibiting a regrettable assortment of teeth. More applause. "No! By working harder? Who gets the profit when we work it

So violent was the distaste Terry experienced for the speaker that it was making him acutely uncomfortable. For once since he began his economic investigations, he understood what was being said, and it irritated him. The orator, warmed by applause, became more denunciatory. He denounced the armies, of the world and the spirit that made them fight. He said the laboring men had been driven like sheep to fight the battles of capitalism and the only rich men's sons in the war were back of the lines and there for advertising.

Terry twisted about uneasily. Not that all rich men's sons were crooks and cowards, the speaker had added. Those who were not proved themselves by joining the ranks of the comrades. He waved a hand in Terry's direction and bowed. There was applause. Such men, the fluent young man declared, turned their back on the stolen luxury, ill-gotten castles, and unmerited privilege handed on to them by their sires. They would be the first, he had no doubt, to put a bomb under those same castles where the friends of the old order, etc., etc.

Terry said something to Larrimer, and the latter murmured: "Oh, stick it out. He'll soon be through." He found the situation mildly amusing.

"Empires is out of date," the speaker was yelling. "A British empire or an American empire ain't any different

When the applause had died away he added, shading his voice to a tone of intimate comradeship: "We got with us to-night a new friend. In the old country he is called dook. Here he is just comrade. Comrade, will you express a few words to these here friends?"

Terry glowered at the orator. "What does he want me to talk about?" he inquired in a loud tone.

Vlasak, smiling, replied, "Tell the boys about your views on class privilege, labor, and so forth, and your conception of Socialism."

Terry rose with the childlike unawareness of self that characterized him. He loomed high, his nonchalant, tall figure with its well-set blond head dominating the assembly. Larrimer caught sight of Dickie and winked. He found the situation piquant. Pulling an envelope and pencil from his pocket, he sketched the long lines of Terry's back and the rows of swarthy faces looking up at him. But Dickie felt vaguely uneasy.

"Confound Larrimer!" he thought. "This is a damn tough crowd.”

'I'm sure I don't know," Terry began, peevishly, "why I should have been asked to address any remarks to anybody." His smooth, low voice filled the room and his enunciation was oddly clear-cut after the guttural utterance which had preceded. The attention of the audience was sharpened by this unexpected opening. "Particularly," he went on, "to make any remarks about Socialism. I don't know anything about Socialism. My friend Larrimer knows all about it and it must be jolly well all right if he thinks so, but I'm sure I've never been able to find out what it waser-jolly well all about."

A ripple of surprise, breaking into laughter here and there, swept the audience. Larrimer threw back his head and chuckled deeply.

"However," the speaker went on, “if the person who has just been talking wants to know what I thought of his remarks, I shall be jolly glad to sayit was damned, mischievous rot! And I'd like to know how you Americans out there can sit and hear your own nation and your ally, Great Britain, insulted by this bounder." He pointed to the late speaker, who leaped to his feet, staring at Terry as at one demented. Everyone in the hall was on his feet, still too amazed to take, for a moment, any action. Terry, becoming more and more enthusiastic, rushed on happily:

"If he wants to drag down any nation, why doesn't he drag down his own, whatever that may be, and leave the country he has inflicted himself on jolly well alone?"

An angry murmur burst out in the audience which was crowding toward the platform. Here and there, to be sure, a laugh had been heard, but for the most part fists were shaken and voices cried, "Throw him out!" "Shut him up!"

Larrimer said, "I guess we better beat it, Selwyn," but Terry brushed him aside.

"What does he mean by saying it was only the lower classes fought this war?"

"Lower classes!" shrieked the audience, and Terry, raising his voice above the din, went on:

"That's just dirty, unsporting twaddle, like everything else he said."

Something was thrown and Terry dodged it, the gladi light of battle springing to his eye. "A chap like that would bomb a castle and kill a lot of old women." Several other missiles showered about him, and Terry, catching one, hurled it back. "Nobody but a dirty coward messes about with bombs!" he yelled.

Then pandemonium broke loose. Terry seized the kitchen chair he had been sitting on, yelling, "Bombs! Cowards! Bombs! Cowards!" Larrimer, with the joy of fight upon him, grabbed

his own chair and waved it menacingly.

They were alone on the platform which was small and high, and they cracked the chairs lustily on the heads and hands attempting to swarm up to them. For a moment an acute longing to hurl himself into the fray seized Dickie, but he sacrificed this pleasure to what he considered the seriousness of the situation. This was, as he had said, a tough crowd. Many of them understood almost no English and had little idea what it was all about, but smashing faces was good sport on any pretext. Even with himself they would only be three to scores. He dashed out after the police.

Meanwhile the battle raged about the

platform. One husky fellow slipped through their guard and joined Larrimer and Terry on the platform, where, to their surprise, he bared his arms and invited the crowd to come up and be pulverized. Several minor engagements sprang up here and there among the comrades themselves among those, doubtless, who could not get near enough to fight the enemy. The uproar was terrific. The chairs Terry and Larrimer wielded were splintered and had to be discarded. The position could not be held forever, and at last their territory was invaded and they were engaging two at a time those who came over the top.

Then, to the regret of all concerned, the police arrived and four truck-loads of combatants, including Terry and Lar