"Peter, my heart jumped at first glimpse! 'Tis like the flash of the
Argonne big guns! Thank God, the thunder of 'em isn't following!"
"Yes, thank God!" murmured Demeter, his soul in his tones!
They stood there for a few minutes, shoulder to shoulder, the contact of arm with arm serving for an exchange of thoughts between those veterans in a silence that would have been profaned by words.
The phantasmagoria overhead was shifting infinitely and rapidly; there were flashes that seemed to presage a thunderous roar of an explosion and were more bodeful because the hush aloft in the heavenly spaces remained unbroken; then the filaments and streamers of light made one mighty oriflamme across the skies, an expanse of woven hues, wavering and lashing as if a great wind were threshing across the main fabric and flinging its attendant bannerets.
"It's in the air; it's in the nerves! It puts hell into a man, doesn't it,
Peter?"
"Yes!"
"It was in that telephone back there! It crackled and snapped! A lot of it may be in those poor fools up in that hall—and they ain't knowing what the matter is with 'em! You and I have been over in the Big Bow-wow, boy, and we have had some good lessons in how to handle rattled nerves. I guess it's up to us to hold things steady, as experts. Soothe 'em and smooth 'em! It was All-Wool Morrison's lesson to me to-day! Soft and careful with 'em, seeing that they're full of what's in the air this night, and don't know just what ails 'em!"
He lowered his gaze from the skies. A man was passing on his way toward the door of the hall.
Lanigan had just laid down a general rule of diplomatic conduct for the evening, but he made a prompt exception. He leaped on the man, struggled with him for a moment, and yanked off a red necktie, taking with it the man's collar and a part of his shirt, "But some stuff that they're full of can't be smoothed out—it's got to be whaled out!" panted Lanigan. He did not release his captive. "The nerve o' ye, parading your red wattles on a night like this, ye Tom Gobbler of a Bullshevist!"
"I have the right to pick the color of my own necktie!" snarled the man.