"Get into that elevator and let me out at his floor."
"You let me alone!" said the hall boy. "I was going to."
He knocked a third time before he could hear a faint call. He opened the door. Beyond a dim entrance hall the light fell upon his brother seated at a desk, frowning intently at work before him. The visible half of him was no longer in corduroy. It was incased in a smoking jacket of velvet, and his neck was conventionally clad in collar and cravat. The latter had been hastily tied.
"Why, Wilbur, old man!" cried Merle in pleased surprise. He half rose from the desk, revealing that below the waist he was still corduroy or proletarian. Along his left jaw was a contusion as from a glancing blow. He was still breathing harder than most men do who spend quiet evenings at desks.
Wilbur advanced into the room, but paused before reaching the desk. It was an invitingly furnished room of cushioned couches, paintings, tapestries, soft chairs, warmly toned rugs. The desk at which Merle toiled was ornate and shining. Ex-Private Cowan felt a sudden revulsion. He was back, knee-deep in trench bilge, tortured in all his being, looking at death from behind a sandbag. Vividly he recalled why he had endured that torture.
"You're all out of condition," he announced in even tones to Merle. "A little sprint like that shouldn't get your wind."
Merle's look of sunny welcome faded to one of chagrin. He fell back in his chair. He was annoyed.
"You saw that disgraceful outbreak, then?"
"I was in luck to-night."
"Did you see that drunken rowdy strike at me, and then try to get me down where he and those other brutes could kick me?"