"It must have seemed like old times, didn't it, dad?" he asked with enthusiasm. The Vigilance Committee of the Fifties in his young mind was a knightly company. As a boy he used to listen, eager and excited, to his father's tales of Coleman. Now his hero was again to take the stage.
"Yes, it took me back," said Windham. "I was about your age then and Coleman was just in his thirties." He sat down a trifle wearily. "The years aren't kind. Some of the fellows who were young in '56 seemed old tonight.... But they have the same spirit."
"Tell me what happened," said Robert, after a pause.
Benito's eyes flashed. "You should have heard them cheer when Coleman rose. He called for his old comrades and we stood up. Then there was more cheering. Coleman is all business. He commenced at once enrolling men for his pick-handle brigade; he's refused fire-arms. He has fifteen hundred already, divided into companies of a hundred each--with their own officers."
"And are you an officer, dad?" asked Robert.
"Yes," Benito smiled. "But my company is one man short. We've only ninety-nine."
"How's that?" Robert's tone was puzzled.
Windham rose. "I'm saving it," he answered, "for a wounded hero, who, I rather hope, will volunteer."
"FATHER!" cried the young man rapturously.