"Oh!" Miss Jinny followed with ease the windings of the African mind. "He's a reporter on the _Daybreak_ then." "'Cose he is, Miss Jinny, ma'am. Whatjer reckon?" Miss Jinny reflected. Then: "Eleanor, call up the _Daybreak_ office and ask if Mr. Lance is there and if he will speak to me." But Aunt Basha was right. Mr. Lance was not at the _Daybreak_ office. Mrs. Cabell was as grieved as a child. "We'll find him, Grandmother," Eleanor asserted. "Why, of course--it's a morning paper. He's home sleeping. I'll get his number." She caught up the telephone book. Aunt Basha chuckled musically. "He ain't got no tullaphome, honey chile. No, my Lawd! Whar dat boy gwine git money for tullaphome and contraptions? No, my Lawd!" "How will we get him?" despaired Mrs. Cabell. The end of the council was a cryptic note in the hand of Jackson, the chauffeur, and orders to bring back the addressee at any cost. Meanwhile, as Jackson stood in his smart dark livery taking orders with the calmness of efficiency, feeling himself capable of getting that young man, howsoever hidden, the young man himself was wasting valuable hours off in day-dreams. In the one shabby big chair of the hall bedroom he sat and smoked a pipe, and stared at a microscopic fire in a toy grate. It was extravagant of David Lance to have a fire at all, but as long as he gave up meals to do it likely it was his own affair. The luxuries mean more than the necessities to plenty of us. With comfort in this, his small luxury, he watched the play of light and shadow, and the pulsing of the live scarlet and orange in the heart of the coals. He needed comfort today, the lonely boy. Two men of the office force who had gotten their commissions lately at an officer's training-camp had come in last night before leaving for Camp Devens; everybody had crowded about and praised them and envied them. They had been joked about the sweaters, and socks made by mothers and sweethearts, and about the trouble Uncle Sam would have with their mass of mail. The men in the office had joined to give each a goodbye present. Pride in them, the honor of them to all the force was shown at every turn; and beyond it all there was the look of grave contentment in their eyes which is the mark of the men who have counted the cost and given up everything for their country. Most of all soldiers, perhaps, in this great war, the American fights for an ideal. Also he knows it; down to the most ignorant drafted man, that inspiration has lifted the army and given it a star in the East to follow. The American fights for an ideal; the sign of it is in the faces of the men in uniform whom one meets everywhere in the street. David Lance, splendidly powerful and fit except for the small limp which