“What on earth induced Helen to bring that poor old Dutch doll along with her?” demanded Flossie. “The woman never opened her mouth all the time. Did she tell you?” “Ivanoff’s,” explained the Human Document. “He was our only child.”!

“I may not be here,” she continued, “when the new plans are submitted. Tell them not to forget the foundation this time. Tell them to teach the children.” “I’ll grant you all that, sir,” answered the young soldier who had first spoken. He had long, delicate hands and eager, restless eyes. “War does bring out heroism. So does pestilence and famine. Read Defoe’s account of the Plague of London. How men and women left their safe homes, to serve in the pest-houses, knowing that sooner or later they were doomed. Read of the mothers in India who die of slow starvation, never allowing a morsel of food to pass their lips so that they may save up their own small daily portion to add it to their children’s. Why don’t we pray to God not to withhold from us His precious medicine of pestilence and famine? So is shipwreck a fine school for courage. Look at the chance it gives the captain to set a fine example. And the engineers who stick to their post with the water pouring in upon them. We don’t reconcile ourselves to shipwrecks as a necessary school for sailors. We do our best to lessen them. So did persecution bring out heroism. It made saints and martyrs. Why have we done away with it? If this game of killing and being killed is the fine school for virtue it is made out to be, then all our efforts towards law and order have been a mistake. We never ought to have emerged from the jungle.”

“Poor old girl!” he added. “I believe she’d have been happier if I’d always remained plain Bob Phillips.” She broke into a little laugh. “So did Archimedes disappear,” he answered with a smile. “The nameless Roman soldier remained. That was hardly the survival of the fittest.”