“Well, Spugg,” said one of the members “you’re certainly setting us a fine example.”

“What else can a man do?” said Mr. Spugg.

“When does your chauffeur leave?” asked another man.

“Right away.  I want him in the firing line just as quick as I can get him there.”

“It’s a fine thing you’re doing, Spugg,” said a third member, “but do you realise that your chauffeur may be killed?”

“I must take my chance on that,” answered Mr. Spugg, firmly.  “I’ve thought this thing out and made up my mind:  If my chauffeur is killed, I mean to pay for him,—­full and adequate compensation.  The loss must fall on me, not on him.  Or, say Henry comes back mutilated,—­say he loses a leg,—­say he loses two legs,—­”

Here Mr. Spugg looked about him at his listeners, with a look that meant that even three legs wouldn’t be too much for him.

“Whatever Henry loses I pay for.  The loss shall fall on me, every cent of it.”

“Spugg,” said a quiet looking, neatly dressed man whom I knew to be the president of an insurance company and who reached out and shook the speaker by the hand, “this is a fine thing you’re doing, a big thing.  But we mustn’t let you do it alone.  Let our company take a hand in it.  We’re making a special rate now on chauffeurs, footmen, and house-servants sent to the war, quite below the rate that actuarial figures justify.  It is our little war contribution,” he added modestly.  “We like to feel that we’re doing our bit, too.  We had a chauffeur killed last week.  We paid for him right off without demur,—­waived all question of who killed him.  I never signed a check (as I took occasion to say in a little note I wrote to his people) with greater pleasure.”

“What do you do if Henry’s mutilated?” asked Mr. Spugg, turning his quiet eyes on the insurance man and facing the brutal facts of things without flinching.  “What do you pay?  Suppose I lose the use of Henry’s legs, what then?”

“It’s all right,” said his friend.  “Leave it to us.  Whatever he loses, we make it good.”

“All right,” said Spugg, “send me round a policy.  I’m going to see Henry clear through on this.”

It was at this point that at my own urgent request I was introduced to Mr. Spugg, so that I might add my congratulations to those of the others.  I told him that I felt, as all the other members of the club did, that he was doing a big thing, and he answered again, in his modest way, that he didn’t see what else a man could do.

“My son Alfred and I,” he said, “talked it over last night and we agreed that we can run the car ourselves, or make a shot at it anyway.  After all, it’s war time.”

“What branch of the service are you putting your chauffeur in?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he answered.  “I think I’ll send him up in the air.  It’s dangerous, of course, but it’s no time to think about that.”