"Now," said John, with hearty enthusiasm, "you are talking sense."
"But it is all very different now, John," said Charlie, slowly.
"Millsburgh is not France and the Mill is not the United States Army."
"No," returned John, "and yet there is not such a lot of difference, when you come to think it out."
"We can't disguise the facts," said Captain Martin stubbornly.
"We are not going to disguise anything," retorted John. "I had an idea how you would feel over my promotion, and that is why I wanted you out here to-day. You've got to get this 'it's all very different now' stuff out of your system. So go ahead and shoot your facts."
"All right," said Charlie. "Let's look at things as they are. It was all very well for us to moon over what we would do if we ever got back home when we knew darned well our chances were a hundred to one against our ever seeing the old U.S. again. We spilled a lot of sentiment about comradeship and loyalty and citizenship and equality and all that, but—"
"Can your chatter!" snapped John. "Drag out these facts that you are so anxious to have recognized. Let's have a good look at whatever it is that makes you rough-neck sons of toil so superior to us lily-fingered employers. Go to the bat."
"Well," offered Charlie, reluctantly, "to begin with, you are a millionaire, a university man, member of select clubs; I am nothing but a common workman."
John returned, quickly, "We are both citizens of the United States. In the duties and privileges of our citizenship we stand on exactly the same footing, just as in the army we stood on the common ground of loyalty. And we are both equally dependent upon the industries of our country—upon the Mill, and upon each other. Exactly as we were both dependent upon the army and upon each other in France."
"You are the general manager of the Mill, practically the owner," said
Charlie. "I am only one of your employees."