“Well, neither do I,” said the Inger. “What is the matter with ’em?” he demanded of Lory, as the man departed.
“Why, if it wasn’t for me on ’em,” said Lory, “you’d be starting for war.”
War! The Inger heard the word in astonishment. That was so, he had been going to the war. He had been bent on going to the war, and had so announced his intention. In that day on the mountain, those days on the train, these hours in the city, he had never once thought of war. He flooded his flapjacks with syrup, and said nothing.
“Washington ain’t much out of your way,” she added. “You can get started by day after to-morrow anyway.”
Still he was silent. Then, feeling that something was required of him, he observed nonchalantly:
“Well, we don’t have to talk about it now, as I know of.”
In this, however, he reckoned without his host of the restaurant. As the Inger paid the bill, there was thrust in his hands a white poster, printed in great letters:
GIANT MASS MEETING
THE COLISEUM