“Oh, thank goodness!” said Jim, and sat down and lit his pipe.
“I couldn’t make up my mind to it at first,” his father went on. “One didn’t know how far things were going; and it’s hard to realise you grown up. After all, you’re only nineteen, Jim, lad, and for all that I know, you are capable of doing a man’s work, to my mind soldiering demands an extra degree of toughness, if a fellow is to be of real use. Still, as you say, much younger boys are going; I won’t ask you again to stay. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to ask you in the beginning. I was doubtful in my own mind; but I had to be sure there was real need.”
“And are you satisfied now?”
“Oh, yes. There isn’t any room for further doubt. Every day brings evidence of what the job is going to be—the biggest the Empire ever had to tackle. And the cry from Belgium comes home to every decent man. I’d rather go myself than send you; but as I said, I’m glad you don’t want to stay.”
“Then that’s all right,” Jim said, with a mighty sigh of relief. “You don’t know what a weight it is off my mind, Dad. I’ve hated to seem a beast over it, and you know I always go by your judgment. But somehow I knew you’d have to think differently yourself. Why, great Scott! I couldn’t face you and Norah, in ten years, if I had stayed at home!”
“No; and I couldn’t face you if I had been the one to keep you,” said his father. “So that is settled. But there are other things to settle as well.”
“Rather!” said Jim. “I wonder, can I get into the first contingent, or if I’ll have to wait for the second.”
His father paused before replying.
“There is something else, altogether,” he said at length. “My own plans seem on the verge of an upheaval, just now.”
“Yours? Nothing wrong, is there, Dad?”