“Why, Wilbur, old man!” cried Merle in pleased surprise.  He half rose from the desk, revealing that below the waist he was still corduroy or proletarian.  Along his left jaw was a contusion as from a glancing blow.  He was still breathing harder than most men do who spend quiet evenings at desks.

Wilbur advanced into the room, but paused before reaching the desk.  It was an invitingly furnished room of cushioned couches, paintings, tapestries, soft chairs, warmly toned rugs.  The desk at which Merle toiled was ornate and shining.  Ex-Private Cowan felt a sudden revulsion.  He was back, knee-deep in trench bilge, tortured in all his being, looking at death from behind a sandbag.  Vividly he recalled why he had endured that torture.

“You’re all out of condition,” he announced in even tones to Merle.  “A little sprint like that shouldn’t get your wind.”

Merle’s look of sunny welcome faded to one of chagrin.  He fell back in his chair.  He was annoyed.

“You saw that disgraceful outbreak, then?”

“I was in luck to-night.”

“Did you see that drunken rowdy strike at me, and then try to get me down where he and those other brutes could kick me?”

Wilbur’s stare was cool.  He was feeling the icy muck about his numbed legs.

“I was the one that struck at you.  Too many elbows in the way and I flubbed it.”  He noted his brother start and stiffen in his chair.  “And I didn’t try to get you down.  When I saw it was you I got you up and shot you out where you could run—­if you wanted to.  And I wasn’t drunk, and I’m not a rowdy.”

Merle gazed with horror upon the apparently uncontrite fratricide.  Twice he essayed to speak before he found the words.

“Do you think that was a brave thing to do?”

“No—­but useful.  I’ve been brave a lot of times where it didn’t do as much good as that.”

“Useful!” breathed Merle, scathingly.  “Useful to brutalize a lot of brave souls who merely sought—­” he broke off with a new sense of outrage.  “And not a policeman there to do his duty!” he finished resentfully.

Wilbur Cowan sat in a carven chair near a corner of the beautiful desk, hitching it forward to rest his arms on the desk’s top.  He was newly appraising this white-faced brother.

“Whining!” he suddenly snapped.  “Get up and boast that you’re outlaws, going to keel the Government off its pins.  Then you get the gaff, and the first thing you do is whine for help from that same Government!  You say it’s rotten, but you expect it to watch over you while you knock it down.  If you’re going to be an outlaw, take an outlaw’s chance.  Don’t squeal when you get caught.  You say the rules are rotten, then you fall back on them.  What kind of sportsmanship is that?”

Wearily but with a tolerant smile Merle pushed back the fallen lock with one white hand.

“What could you understand of all this?” he asked, gently.  “We merely claim the right of free speech.”