"Trying to."
"Hard work?"
"I like it,"—succinctly.
The Major smoked for a while in silence. Then he said, "I suppose you don't want to talk about it."
It was a starry night and a still one. The younger boarders had gone for a ride. The older boarders were in bed. The Major was stretched in his long chair. Randy sat as usual on the steps.
"Yes," he said, "I'd like to talk about it. I have a big idea, and I can't put it on paper."
He hugged his knees and talked. His young voice thrilled with the majesty of his conception. Here, he said, was the idea. Once upon a time there had been a race of wonderful swans, with plumage so white that when they rested in flocks on the river banks they made a blanket of snow. Their flight was a marvellous thing—they flew so high that the eye of man could not see them—but the sound of their trumpets could be heard. The years passed and the swans came no more to their old haunts. Men had hunted them and killed them—but there were those who held that on still nights they could be heard—sounding their trumpets——
"I want to link that up with the A. E. F. We were like the swans—a white company which flew to France—— Our idealism was the song which we sounded high up. And the world listened—and caught the sound—— And now, as a body we are extinct, but if men will listen, they may still hear our trumpets—sounding——!"