"But ye'll be coachin' me and I'll be payin' ye wages. Now, do ye mind that? Are ye so blamed big-headed——?"
"'Fraid so. You see, I wouldn't be half earning what I'd need. And as for the summer—well, there's another hundred and thirty dollars due and ready for me, my guardian writes, so I might spend a week or so with you in the mountains; then hunt a job. Come on in town with me now, will you? I want to mail this letter to the legal luminary."
The two boys, arm in arm, made their way across the juniper and spruce covered hillside, then into the broad walk and through the high stone gateway to the street. The post office was half a mile away.
Stepping along briskly and discussing future plans, they were almost past a little crowd, mostly of students and small boys, collected on the sidewalk when quick-witted Roy, not at the moment speaking, caught a few words that made him halt instantly and turn. Herb gazed at him in surprise.
"—und vat I care for der law?" came a guttural voice. "Der American beebles vas fools to go to war mit Chermany, for vat can dey do? Der Chermans is fighters und drained up to der minute und you oxpect dese American chumps vill haff any show mit dem? Uh?"
In a moment Herbert and Roy had joined the assemblage and had observed the speaker to be a big, large-girthed German possessing a very red nose, a glowering countenance and a manner contemptuous and self-exalted. One could read upon him, at a glance, that he held the unalterable opinion that there was no other country like Germany, no people to compare with the Germans and for all the rest of the world, no matter to what section he might owe his present prosperity, he had an altogether poor opinion.
The audience seemed strangely silent before the German's denunciations and Herb glanced about him. Two seniors of Brighton were there and two others of the sophomore class, each one a youth of possibly doubtful courage, more in love with the refinements of books than with the danger of engaging in too strenuous argument with a bearish, bully-ragging, irresponsible foreigner. The rest of the bunch were youngsters from the public school.
One bright-faced, quick-witted boy among the latter there was who alone evidently had the courage of his convictions:
"Aw, gwan! What ye tryin' t' give us? Our fellers'll make that big stiff Hindenburg look like a chicken hit with a brick! Them Dutchmen ain't sa much!"