"Sit down," said Verelst, who gave him a hand.
Jones gave him another. "What else is there to talk about? It will be talked of forever. So will that scrofulous Kaiser. Unfortunately he knows it and that pleases him. Last year or the year before he called for the death and destruction of all who opposed him. With singular modesty he added: 'God who speaks through my mouth so orders!' Loti claims that what spoke through him was a hyena. Loti is lacking in literary sobriety. When a hyena has eaten he is at peace with the world. But when was bestiality ever filled? It is insatiable and so is this thug whom God, at most, may have permitted to look in the mirror without vomiting. Meanwhile we stand by. A generation ago we fought for Cuba. What is Hecuba to us in comparison to the Anima Mundi?"
Verelst turned on the novelist. "And what is literary sobriety? You are hurling words in massed formation."
Jones smiled at him. "Where is my harp?"
"You mean your megaphone," Lennox put in. "You are always rehearsing copy. One of these days I may give you some."
"From the front?" Jones asked.
"Yes, though I don't see how you knew. The President has asked for war. Why aren't we up and at 'em? If Congress hems and haws over it much longer, I'll get my gun and join the Foreign Legion."
Jones nodded. He had guessed that also and he said: "Wait and join the legions here. At present, the country is alarmingly apathetic. The man in the subway is muddled. The call to arms does not stir him. The issues, clear enough to us, seem to him mixed as macaroni. He does not understand a war that is three thousand miles away. But in a year, every man in the country—a country that has never been beaten!—will be in it body and soul. Undividedly, shoulder to shoulder, we will be in it as we have never been in anything before."
The novelist touched a bell. "Lennox, have a Bronx. Verelst, what will you take? I'll wager a pippin that war is declared to-morrow."
"Done," said Verelst—who lost it.