Sharon had cunningly gone away from his own failure to sit tight.  He was proving flexible-minded here, as on the links.

They were silent, looking out over the spread of Home Farm.  The red house still shimmered in the heat waves.  The tall trees about it hung motionless.  The click of the reaper in the south forty sounded like a distant locust.

“Put the fear of God into him,” said Sharon at last.  “Let him know them checks have gosh all truly stopped.”

“Yes, sir,” said Wilbur.

“Now drive on and we’ll look the house over.  The last tenant let it run down.  But I’ll fix it right for you.  Why, like as not you’ll be having a missis and young ones of your own there some day.”

“I might; you can’t tell.”

“Well, I wish they was going to be Whipple stock.  Ours is running down.  I don’t look for any prize-winners from your brother; he’ll likely marry that widow, or something, that wants to save America like Russia has been.  And Juliana, I guess she wasn’t ever frivolous enough for marriage.  And that Pat—­she’ll pick out one of them boys with a head like a seal, that knows all the new dances and what fork to use.  Trust her!  Not that she didn’t show Whipple stuff over there.  But she’s a rattlepate in peacetime.”

“Yes, sir,” said Wilbur.

He left a train at the Grand Central Station in New York early the following evening.  He had the address of Merle’s apartment on lower Fifth Avenue, and made his way there on foot through streets crowded with the war’s backwash.  Men in uniform were plentiful, and he was many times hailed by them.  Though out of uniform himself, they seemed to identify him with ease.  Something in his walk, the slant of his shoulders, and the lean, browned, watchful face—­the eyes set for wider horizons than a mere street—­served to mark him as one of them.

The apartment of Merle proved to be in the first block above Washington Square.  While he scanned doors for the number he was seized and turned about by a playful creature in uniform.

“Well, Buck Cowan, you old son of a gun!”

“Gee, gosh, Stevie!  How’s the boy?”

They shook hands, moving to the curb where they could talk.

“What’s the idea?” demanded ex-Private Cowan.  “Why this dead part of town for so many of the boys?”

Service men were constantly sauntering by them or chatting in little groups at the curb.

“She’s dead, right now,” Steve told him, “but she’ll wake up pronto.  Listen, Buck, we got the tip!  A lot of them fur-faced boys that hurl the merry bombs are goin’ to pull off a red-flag sashay up the Avenoo.  Get it?  Goin’ to set America free!”

“I get it!” said Wilbur.

“Dirty work at the crossroads,” added Steve.

“Say, Steve, hold it for twenty minutes, can’t you?  I got to see a man down here.  Be good; don’t hurt any one till I get back.”

“Do my best,” said Steve, “but they’re down there in the Square now stackin’ up drive impedimenta and such, red banners, and so forth, tuning up to warble the hymn to free Russia.  Hurry if you want to join out with us!”