“A patch here, and a new heel, comrade,” he said. “With that and a polishing, it will do well enough for marching.”
The usual group was in the shop, mostly young men, a scattering of gray heads. The advocates of strange doctrines, most of them. Old Adelbert disapproved of them, regarded them with a sort of contempt.
Now he felt that they smiled behind his back. It was his clothing, he felt. He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. He no longer felt ashamed before them. Already, although the tailor still pressed its seams and marked upon it with chalk, he was clad in the dignity of the new uniform.
He turned and nodded to them. “A fine evening,” he said. “If this weather holds, we will have—a good day for the marching.” He squinted a faded eye at the sky outside.
“What marching?”
Old Adelbert turned on the speaker sharply. “Probably you have forgotten,” he said scornfully, “but in a week comes an anniversary there are many who will remember. The day of a great battle. Perhaps,” he added, “if you do not know of what I speak, there are some here who will tell you.”
Unexpectedly the crowd laughed.
Old Adelbert flushed a dusky red and drew himself up. “Since when,” he demanded, “does such a speech bring laughter? It was no laughing matter then.”
“It is the way of the old to live in the past,” a student said. Then, imitating old Adelbert’s majestic tone: “We, we live in the future. Eh, comrades?” He turned to the old soldier: “You have not seen the bulletins?”
“Bulletins?”