“Not for a thousand dollars—would I, Patches?”
“Y’ sure? Here’s a thousand dollars. Can I take the dog?”
The sad, drawn face looked at the ten crisp golden bills as if in a trance, but never for a moment did the owner waver.
“No, not for a thousand. Patches and I have seen better days, comrades we’ve been for years; he is as loyal to me to-day as ever, and we’ll not part till death does it. I could not sell my best friend, could I, Patches? All the rest have left me, but you have never once complained, have you, old fellow? No, my friend, I’m pretty low, but I’ll never be as low as that. I thank you for the offer, but I can’t accept.”
Van Gilder, a puzzled, thoughtful man, got into his car and drove off. But not to the laboratories. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, a new light had burst upon him.
THE ARM AT GRAVELOTTE
By William Almon Wolff
He was an old man, with snow-white hair and a patriarch’s beard. One sleeve of his coat was empty. He had lived in the village for many years—since five years after the great war, men said. He had prospered; when the new war of 1914 broke out he was the largest landholder for miles around.
It was not far from the French border, this village of which Hans Schmidt was patriarch. It had no railway station, but a line of rail came to it and ended in long platforms in open fields. Twice, of late years, trains had rolled up beside those platforms, discharging soldiers of the Fatherland, engaged in manœuvres. Now, in the first week of August, there was real use for the platforms. For three days trains rolled up in a never-ending procession, discharging their living freight of men in a misty, gray-green uniform that melted into the background of grass and shrubs at a hundred paces, with even the spikes of their helmets covered with cloth.
Westward moved the soldiers, like a swarm of locusts. But they left something behind, an integral part of themselves, their collective brain. About the house of Hans Schmidt sentries were posted. Mechanics, working quietly, swiftly, as if they had known long since what they must do, laid wires into his modest parlour, connected it by telephone and telegraph with Berlin, with the ever-moving forces to the west. In Hans Schmidt’s bed slept a corps commander; the whole house was given up to the staff. He himself was allowed a cot in the kitchen. His house was chosen for headquarters.