"Oh, don't rub it in," the manufacturer's son shouted above the chorus, "you old fellows! I've a year and six months more."
"Here, too!" chimed in the banker's son. "A year and six months more of iron spoons and tin cups and army shoes and army fare and early rising. Hep-hep-hep, drill-drill-drill, and drudgery!"
"Oh, I don't know!" said the day-laborer's son. "I don't have to get up any earlier than I do at home, and I don't have to work as hard as I'll have to when I leave."
"Nor I!" agreed the blacksmith's son. "It's a kind of holiday for me."
"Holiday!" the banker's son gasped. "That's so," he added thoughtfully, and smiled gratefully over a fate that had been indulgent to him in a matter of fathers and limousines.
"Look at the newspapers! Maybe we shall be going to war," said the manufacturer's son.
"Stuff! Nonsense!" said the judge's son. "We are always having scares. They sell papers and give the fellows at the Foreign Office a chance to look unconcerned. But let's have the opinion of an international expert, of the great and only philosopher, guide, companion, and friend. What do you think of the crisis, eh, Hugo? Soberly, now. The fate of nations may hang on your words. If not, at least the price of a ginger soda!"
It was around Hugo Mallin that the group had formed. Groups were always forming around Hugo. He could spring the unexpected and incongruous and make people laugh. Slight but wiry of physique, he had light hair, a freckled and rather nondescript nose, large brown eyes, and a broad, sensitive mouth. Nature had not attempted any regularity of features in his case. She had been content with making each one a mobile servant of his mind. In repose his face was homely, and it was a mask.
"Come on, Hugo! Out with it!"
Hugo's brow contracted; the lines of the mask were drawn in deliberate seriousness.