The news was the chief topic in the club that day.  “Spugg’s gardener has been torpedoed,” they said, “but Spugg refuses to have him quit and come home.”  “Well done, Spugg,” said everybody.

After that we had news from time to time about both William and Henry.

“Henry’s out of the hospital,” said Spugg.  “I hope to have him back in France in a few days.  William’s in bad shape still.  I had a London surgeon go and look at him.  I told him not to mind the expense but to get William fixed up right away.  It seems that one arm is more or less paralysed.  I’ve wired back to him not to hesitate.  They say William’s blood is still too thin for the operation.  I’ve cabled to them to take some of Henry’s.  I hate to do it, but this is no time to stick at anything.”

A little later William and Henry were reported both back in France.  This was at the very moment of the great offensive.  But Spugg went about his daily business unmoved.  Then came the worst news of all.  “William and Henry,” he said to me, “are both missing.  I don’t know where the devil they are.”

“Missing?” I repeated.

“Both of them.  The Germans have caught them both.  I suppose I shan’t have either of them back now till the war is all over.”

He gave a slight sigh,—­the only sign of complaint that ever I had heard come from him.

But the next day we learned what was Spugg’s answer to the German’s capture of William and Henry.

“Have you heard what Spugg is doing?” the members of the club asked one another.

“What?”

“He’s sending over Meadows, his own man!”

There was no need to comment on it.  The cool courage of the thing spoke for itself.  Meadows,—­Spugg’s own man,—­his house valet, without whom he never travelled twenty miles!

“What else was there to do?” said Mr. Spugg when I asked him if it was true that Meadows was going.  “I take no credit for sending Meadows nor, for the matter of that, for anything that Meadows may do over there.  It was a simple matter of duty.  My son and I had him into the dining room last night after dinner.  ‘Meadows,’ we said, ’Henry and William are caught.  Our man power at the front has got to be kept up.  There’s no one left but ourselves and you.  There’s no way out of it.  You’ll have to go.’”

“But how,” I protested, “can you get along with Meadows, your valet, gone?  You’ll be lost!”

“We must do the best we can.  We’ve talked it all over.  My son will help me dress and I will help him.  We can manage, no doubt.”

So Meadows went.

After this Mr. Spugg, dressed as best he could manage it, and taking turns with his son in driving his own motor, was a pathetic but uncomplaining object.

Meadows meantime was reported as with the heavy artillery, doing well.  “I hope nothing happens to Meadows,” Spugg kept saying.  “If it does, we’re stuck.  We can’t go ourselves.  We’re too busy.  We’ve talked it over and we’ve both decided that it’s impossible to get away from the office,—­not with business as brisk as it is now.  We’re busier than we’ve been in ten years and can’t get off for a day.  We may try to take a month off for the Adirondacks a little later but as for Europe, it’s out of the question.”