“We will consider your application and notify you.”
This very kindliness of tone caused the fat man to pale.
“I know what that means,” he protested. “That’s Y. M. C. A. for ‘no.’ Let me go,” he implored. “I’ll serve. I’ll stand the punishment. I’m strong and I’ll work till I drop. You won’t be ashamed of me, honestly.”
“We’ll notify you without delay, Mr. Dalrymple.”
There was no more to be said. Dimples wallowed out of the room with his head down.
That night he walked the soft-carpeted floor of his chamber until very late, and when he did go to bed it was not to sleep. Daylight found him turning restlessly, his eyes wide open and tragic. Another failure! Within him the spirit of sacrifice burned with consuming fury, but there was no outlet for it. Through his veins ran the blood of a fighting family; nevertheless, a malicious prank of nature had doomed him to play the part of Falstaff or of Fatty Arbuckle. What could he do to help? Doubtless he could find work for his hands in ship-yard or foundry, but they were soft, white hands, and they knew no trade. Give? He had given freely and would give more; but everybody was giving. No; action called him. He belonged in the roar and the din of things where men’s spirit tells.
That afternoon he was waddling down Fifth Avenue when Mr. Augustus Van Loan stopped him to exclaim:
“Good Heavens, Dimples! What has happened to you?”
Van Loan was a malefactor of great wealth. His name was a hissing upon the lips of soap-box orators. None of his malefactions, to be sure, had ever yet been uncovered, nor were any of the strident-voiced orators even distantly acquainted with him, but his wealth was an established fact of such enormity that in the public eye he was suspect.
“I’m all in,” the disconsolate mammoth mumbled, and then made known his sorrow. “Too fat to get in the army; too soft morally to get in the Y. M. C. A. I didn’t know how rotten I am. I can’t carry a gun for my country; I’m not good enough to lug soup to the boys who do. And, meanwhile, the Huns are pressing forward.”