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By Root 8785 0

given as references. He told them about getting antityphoid injections and a physical examination and said to cal the next day to find out the sailing date. When they came out of the elevator there was a group of men in the shinymarble lobby with their heads bent over a newspaperi; the U. S. was at war with Germany. That night Charley wrote his mother that he was going to the war and please to send him fifty dol-lars. Then he and Doc went out to look at the town. There were flags on every building. They walked past business block after business block looking for Times Square. Everywhere people were reading newspapers. At Fourteenth they heard a drumbeat and a band and waited at the corner to see what regiment it would be but it was only the Salvation Army. By the time they got to Madison

-407-Square it was the dinner hour and the streets were de-serted. It began to drizzle a little and the flags up Broad-day and Fifth Avenue hung limp from their poles. They went into the Hofbrau to eat. Charley thought it looked too expensive but Doc said it was his party. A man was on a stepladder over the door screwing the bulbs into an electric sign of an American flag. The restaurant was draped with American flags inside and the band played The Star-Spangled Banner every other number, so that they kept having to get to their feet. "What do they think this is, settin' up exercises?" grumbled Doc. There was one group at a round table in the corner that didn't get up when the band played The Star-Spangled Banner, but sat there quietly talking and eating as if noth-ing had happened. People round the restaurant began to stare at them and pass comments.

"I bet they're . . . Huns . . . German spies . . . Pacifists." There was an army officer at a table with a girl who got red in the face whenever he looked at them. Final y a waiter, an elderly German, went up to them and whispered something.

"I'l be damned if I wil ," came the voice from the table in the corner. Then the army officer went over to them and said something about courtesy to our national anthem. He came away redder in the face than ever. He was a little man with bowlegs squeezed into brightly pol-ished puttees. "Dastardly pro-Germans," he sputtered as he sat down. Immediately he had to get up because the band played The Star-Spangled Banner.

"Why don't you cal the police, Cyril?" the girl who was with him said. By this time people from al over the restaurant were ad-vancing on the round table. Doc pul ed Charley's chair around. "Watch this; it's going to be good."

A big man with a Texas drawl yanked one of the men

out of his chair. "You git up or git out."

"You people have no right to interfere with us," began

-408-one of the men at the round table. "You express your approval of the war getting up, we express our disap-proval by . . ." There was a big woman with a red hat with a plume on it at the table who kept saying, "Shut up; don't talk to 'em." By this time the band had stopped. Everybody clapped as hard as he could and yel ed, "Play it again; that's right." The waiters were running round nervously and the proprietor was in the center of the floor mopping his bald head.

The army officer went over to the orchestra leader

and said, "Please play our national anthem again." At the first bar he came stiffly to attention. The other men rushed the round table. Doc and the man with the English accent were jostling each other. Doc squared off to hit him.

"Come outside if you want to fight," the man with the English accent was saying.

"Leave 'em be, boys," Doc was shouting. "I'l take 'em on outside, two at a time." The table was upset and the party began backing off towards the door. The woman with the red hat picked up a bowl of lobster mayonnaise and was holding back the crowd by chucking handfuls of it in their faces. At that moment three cops appeared and arrested the damn paci-fists. Everybody stood around wiping mayonnaise off his clothes. The band played The Star-Spangled Banner again and everybody tried to sing but it didn't make much of an effect because nobody