"That," observed Stransky deliberately, "is a little piece of metal that I got for an inspiration of manhood. It doesn't cost the price of a day's rations, but it's one of the things which money can't buy—not yet—in this commercial age. One of those institutions of barbarism that we anarchists call government gave it to me, and I'll never part with it!"
"Because he was a brave soldier, Clarissa," explained Marta in simpler terms. "Because he was ready to die for his country."
"And for your mother!" put in Stransky, seizing Clarissa in his great hands and lifting her lightly to the level of his face. "Oh, I've got stories," he said to her, "a soldier-man's stories, to tell you, young lady, one of these days—and such stories!"
He crossed his eyes over his big nose in a fashion that made Clarissa clap her hands and burst into a peal of laughter.
"You're an awfully funny man!" she declared as Stransky set her down.
"So your mother thinks," said Stransky, blinking at Minna, who had indulged in a smile which his remark promptly ironed out.
This irrepressible soldier, given so much as an inch, would be demanding a province. But erasing a smile is not destroying the fact of it. Stransky took heart for the charge on seeing a breach in the enemy's lines.
"Yes, I was fighting for you!" he burst out to Minna. "When the other fellows were reading letters from their sweethearts I was imagining letters from you. I even wrote out some and posted them from one pocket to another, in place of the regular mails."
"What did you say in those letters?" asked Marta.
"Why, you're big and awkward and cross-eyed, Stransky, but you've a way with you, and maybe—"