"You'll have to wait awhile, Reddy," laughed Frank. "Your heart's all right, but Uncle Sam isn't ready for the kids yet."
"Mr. Peterson said there were boys in the Union army only fourteen years old," grumbled Reddy. "And if they could fight I don't see why I can't."
"I'm going into the navy," announced Dick Ormsby, whose father was a retired sea captain. "I've got the love of blue water in my veins I guess, and I'm aching to get a chance to pot a German U-boat."
"Me for the aviators!" cried Will Baxter. "I always wanted to be a high flyer—now I've got the chance. I know all about running a motorcycle and that ought to help a lot."
"I'd like to join the cavalry," joined in Hal Chase. "But they don't seem to have much use for them in this war. Horses can't go over trenches and barbed wire fences."
"The infantry's good enough for me," declared Frank.
"And for me, too," echoed Bart. "Uncle Sam needs men in every branch, but after all, it's the hand to hand fighting of the armies that's going to decide this war."
At this moment, Mr. Moore, the senior member of the firm, came out from his office. He was a large man with a genial face and bearing, and was generally liked by his employees to whom he was fair and just.
His eyes twinkled as he saw the alacrity with which the young men scattered to their desks.
"Don't worry, boys," he said. "I know that your minds aren't much on business to-day, and I don't wonder. To tell the truth, I'd be sorry if they were. There come times when there's only one important thing in the world, and this is one of the times. I've got just a word to say to you boys," he went on. "I don't know just what each one of you is planning to do in connection with this war. Each one of you must decide that matter for himself. From things I've heard, most of you seem eager to go. I shall be sorry to lose you, for we never were busier than we are now, but I should be still more sorry to have you stay here when your country needs you at the front.