3

"Your son, I see, Mr. Whitlow," said Mr. Skindle, the watchmaker, "has been getting into the papers. Seems he's been making speeches."

"Whe–where? I didn't see it," said Mr. Whitlow.

"It's in the District Weekly," said Lozanda. "I saw it too.

"'Local scholarship winner' they called him. Just a paragraph copied out of the Camford News."

"Says he's a Rising Red," said Mr. Cramble the grocer, with a stern eye over his pipe.

The paper was handed to Mr. Whitlow and there was silence while he read the news.

"Now that's serious," he said. "You never know what to do with that boy. Always breaking out in a new place. It won't do him any good at Camford to be figuring about as a red."

"It will not," said Mr. Cramble.

"Seems he don't like the idea of this new war that's coming," said Lozanda. "We had a dose. I don't see why these kids shouldn't be soaked a bit. Make men of them."

"Or crosses," said Mr. Skindle. "You don't know what it is to have a cross out there, Lozanda. I do. Ain't there no way of escaping it?"

"Not by talking Red Treason," said Mr. Cramble. "I don't know what's happening to all these youngsters nowadays. Restless they are—extravagant. No respect for established things. As if they were all waiting about for something they didn't quite like, to come out of the night and happen."

"I did think Rudie had settled down to work," said Mr. Whitlow with a rising sense of grievance. "We made sacrifices for him."

"Seems the generals are old fools and the admirals old fools and the bankers and business men fools and knaves," said Lozanda with the District Weekly as evidence in his hands. "He's got a hot tongue, that boy of yours. Hope it won't get him into trouble."

"Always had a hot tongue," said Mr. Whitlow. "Fancy his breaking out at them like that…Silly young fool! Always talk, he would. Always. Burst out—like. After our sacrifices."

He took his troubles home with him. He walked about the bedroom undressing, and delivering his soul. "I ain't going to stand for it. I sent him to Camford to get a first–class degree and a permanent job. I didn't send him to Camford to get ideers. Who's going to listen to a young fellow like him telling them off? I ask you."

But Mrs. Whitlow answered nothing, because she had been reading over again Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Ugly Duckling. Ugly, Rudie certainly was. Nasty, too. Cunning and mean to his brothers. He could say the most horrid things…He seemed always angry about something…Why should he be angry?…Maybe if one understood him better…understood him better…

She went to sleep.