Everyone with whom he came in contact was assured by him that the country was heading for helldom on high.
It also gave him a bit of relief to vent his vituperation on Comrade President for not rushing into War on the day that Kaiser Bill began to shoot up the high seas like a bar braggart on a busy Saturday night.
Almost any hour you passed his office you could hear him over the transom telling somebody about the folly of Watchful Waiting, conciliatory notes and other presidential piffle.
He said that nothing could be nobler than for young Americans to offer up their lives in defense of flag and country.
And just to show how doggone deep his Nationalism went, he trotted out and bought a great big American flag for cash and nailed it up back of his desk.
When Uncle Sam finally decided to throw the little felt kelly into the international ring, he turned back the lapel of his coat and threw out his patriotic chest as if he had scored some big personal victory against the determined resistance of a hundred million Americans.
One day, shortly after the events of which we speak, our War Hero was found sitting at his Mahogany, with knitted brows and knotted physiog, steeped in painful, ponderous thought.
Nobody knew just what had struck him until he called his stenographer and dictated a very private but trenchant letter to the Congressman of his District and another to his favorite Senator with the wooden Prince Al, adjuring them to fight against the clause in the War Tax Bill that threatened to assail his profits.
Having landed a munitions contract in the early days of the war that netted him a cold, clammy four million in profits, and having drawn a beautiful mental picture of just how he was going to invest that million so as to bring a modest return of 100 percent, he was naturally given over to the ravages of righteous indig when he learned that the Government proposed to put its large horny fist into his profit bag and extract a fairly girthful percentage of those profits for use in helping clothe and feed the young Americans whom he so highly honored for their Patriotism.