"Oh, I don't know," returned the other.
"I thought we were discussing the question of rank," said John.
"Well," retorted Charlie, dryly, "isn't that exactly the whole question as your sister sees it?"
"You give me a pain!" growled John. "I'll admit that Helen, right now, attaches a great deal of importance to some things that—well, that are not so very important after all. But she is no worse than I was before I learned better. And you take my word she'll learn, too. Sister visits the old Interpreter too often not to absorb a few ideas that she failed to acquire at school. He will help her to see the light, just as he helped me. But for him, I would have been nothing but a gentleman slacker myself—if there is any such animal. But what under heaven has all this to do with our relation as employer and employee in the Mill? What effect would Mary have had on you over there if she had gone to you with 'Oh, Charlie dear, you mustn't go out in that dreadful No Man's Land to-night. It is so dirty and wet and cold. Remember that you are an officer, Charlie dear, and let Private John go.'"
Captain Charlie laughed—this new general manager of the Mill was so like the buddie he had loved in France. "Do you remember that night—" he began, but his comrade interrupted him rudely.
"Shut up! I've got to get this thing off my chest and you've got to hear me out. This country of ours started out all right with the proposition that all men are created free and equal. But ninety per cent of our troubles are caused by our crazy notions as to what that equality really means. The rest of our grief comes from our fool claims to superiority of one sort or another. It looks to me as though you and Helen agreed exactly on this question of rank and I am here to tell you that you are both wrong."
Captain Charlie Martin sat up at this, but before he could speak John shot a question at him. "Tell me, when Private Ward saluted Captain Martin as the regulations provide, was the action held by either the officer or the private to be a recognition of the superiority of Captain Martin or the inferiority of Private Ward—was it?"
"Not that any one could notice," answered Charlie with a grin.
"You bet your life it wasn't," said John. "Well, then," he continued, "what was it that the salute recognized?"
"Why, it was the captain's rank."