The latter revealed an entrancing tropical scene with graceful palms adorning the marge of a pinkly sun-kissed sea.  At a table in the background two officers consulted with a private above an important-looking map, while another pleased-looking private stood at attention near by.  At the left foreground a rather obsequious-looking old colonel seemed to be entreating a couple of spruce young privates to drop round for tea that afternoon and meet the ladies.

Had Wilbur happened upon this poster in conjunction with the resolve of Miss Pearl King to be sensible, it is possible his history might have been different.  But its promise had faded from his memory ere his life was wrecked.  He felt now merely that he ought to settle down to something.  Even Sharon Whipple plainly told him so.  He said it was all right to knock about from one thing to another while you were still in the gristle.  Up to twenty a boy’s years were kind of yeasty and uncertain, and if he was any way self-headed he ought to be left to run.  But after twenty he lost his pinfeathers and should begin to think about things.

So Wilbur began to think about things.  He continued to do everything that old Porter Howgill was asked to do, to repair cars for the Mansion garage, and to be a shield and buckler to Sam Pickering in time of need.  The Advance office became freshly attractive at this time, because Sam had installed a wonderful new power press to print the paper daily; for the Advance, as Sam put it, could be found ever in the van of progress.

The new press had innermost secrets of structure that were presently best known to Wilbur Cowan.  No smeared small boy was required to ink its forms and no surmounting bronze eagle was reported to scream for beer when the last paper was run off.  Even Dave Cowan, drifting in from out of the nowhere—­in shoes properly describable as only memories of shoes—­said she was a snappy little machine, and applauded his son’s easy mastery of it.

So the days of Wilbur were busy days, even if he had not settled far enough down to suit either Sam Pickering, Porter Howgill—­who did everything, if asked—­or the First-Class Garage.  And the blight put upon him by a creature as false as she was beautiful proved not to be enduring.  He was able, indeed, to behold her without a tremor, save of sympathy for one compelled to endure the daily proximity of Lyman Teaford.

But the war prolonged itself as only he and Winona had felt it would, and presently it began to be hinted that a great nation, apparently unconcerned with its beginning, might eventually be compelled to a livelier interest in it.  Herman Vielhaber was a publicly exposed barometer of this sentiment.  At the beginning he beamed upon the world and predicted the Fatherland’s speedy triumph over all the treacherous foes.  When the triumph was unaccountably delayed he appeared mysterious, but not less confident.  The Prussian system might involve delay, but Prussian might was none the less invincible.  Herman would explain the Prussian system freely to all who cared to listen—­and many did attentively—­from high diplomacy to actual fighting.  He left many of his hearers with a grateful relief that neutrality had been officially enjoined upon them.