At last what Troy longed for had come: his country was playing her part. And he, who had so watched and hoped and longed for the divine far-off event, had talked of it early and late, to old and young, had got himself laughed at, scolded, snubbed, ridiculed, nicknamed, commemorated in a school-magazine skit in which "Marne" and "yarn" and "oh, darn," formed the refrain of a lyric beginning "Oh say, have you heard Belknap flap in the breeze?", he, who had borne all the scoldings and all the ridicule, sustained by a mysterious secret faith in the strength of his cause, now saw that cause triumph, and all his country waving with flags and swarming with khaki, while he had to stand aside and look on, because his coming birthday was only his nineteenth . . . He remembered the anguish of regret with which he had seen M. Gantier leave St. Moritz to join his regiment, and thought now with passionate envy of his tutor's fate. "Dulce et decorum est . . ." The old hackneyed phrase had taken on a beauty that filled his eyes with tears.

Eighteen—and "nothing doing" till he was twenty-one! He could have killed the cousins and uncles strutting about in uniform and. saying: "Don't fret, old man—there's lots of time. The war is sure to last another four years."

To say that, and laugh, how little they must know of what war meant!

It was an old custom in the Belknap family to ask Troy what he wanted for his birthday. The custom (according to tradition) had originated on his sixth anniversary, when, being given a rabbit with ears that wiggled, he had grown very red and stammered out: "I did so want a 'cyclopædia . . ."

Since then, he had always been consulted on the subject with a good deal of ceremony, and had spent no little time and thought in making a judicious choice in advance. But this year his choice took no thinking over.

"I want to go to France," he said immediately.

"To France—?"

It instantly struck his keen ears that there was less surprise than he had feared in Mr. Belknap's voice.

"To France, my boy? The government doesn't encourage foreign travel just now."

"I want to volunteer in the Foreign Legion," said Troy, feeling as if the veins of his forehead would burst.

Mrs. Belknap groaned, but Mr. Belknap retained his composure.

"My dear chap, I don't think you know much about the Foreign Legion. It's a pretty rough berth for a fellow like you. And they're as likely as not," he added carelessly, "to send you to Morocco or the Kamerun."

Troy, knowing this to be true, hung his head.

"Now," Mr. Belknap continued, taking advantage of his silence, "my counter-proposition is that you should go to Brazil for three months with your uncle Tom Jarvice, who is being sent down there on a big engineering job. It's a wonderful opportunity to see the country—see it like a prince, too, for he'll have a special train at his disposal.—Then, when you come back," he continued, his voice weakening a little under the strain of Troy's visible inattention, "we'll see . . ."