“Well, Bob! And all right, too—not a thing wrong with you,” cried Larry, catching Bob’s shoulders and giving him a shake in his relief and satisfaction. “If I’d listened to Lucy, some of these days we’ve been through, I’d have imagined you’d come back in little pieces. She’s a pessimist where you’re concerned. Come in and sit down, idiot—I’ll be giving you a relapse,” said Larry, all in one breath, as he led Bob back to his chair.
“It’s great to see you, Larry,” declared Bob, sinking down obediently, though he added, as a protest against further coddling, “I’m not so helpless, you know. A little tired now because Alan Leslie and I had to run and dodge through Berlin to escape Spartacan bullets.”
“No! Let’s hear about it. Are things so bad there? Coblenz seems as quiet as a graveyard.”
“I’ll tell you the whole yarn presently. I want you to meet my cousin. Lucy, see if Alan’s anywhere around. I think you and he will get along, Larry. There’s something wonderfully alike in your way of looking at things—a sort of happy-go-luckiness——”
“I suppose you mean that he doesn’t expect to shoulder the responsibilities for his regiment, or to capture the entire Bolshevik army by himself,” retorted Larry. “He was with you in Berlin, you said? Now I see why you got out alive.”
Bob laughed at him. “It sounds natural to hear you going for me, Larry,” he said. “I don’t mean that Alan won’t plunge into danger—you do it, too, in spite of that cautious talk. I mean he won’t bother to think things out, but takes them calmly as they come. He’s a fine chap to have along in a tight place. You can’t phase him—he’s always prepared for the worst.”
“Like Lucy,” remarked Larry, looking toward the door through which she had disappeared. “That girl has no end of sand, Bob. She went on working without a murmur—except once in a while to me—when no one knew just how things were with you. She’s been through a lot in the past two years. I hope you can all go home soon.”
“We can’t, though—not Father nor I. And what is the use in Lucy’s going home when Father is stationed here? But we’ll go to England before long. The Leslies want us to come.”
“Hooray, will you?” cried Larry, with what seemed quite disproportionate satisfaction until he explained, “I’m going there myself in a month or two. They’ve offered me the chance to finish at Oxford the year I lost at Yale when war began.”