Part 5 (1/2)
”Don't you see he's getting you, Gene?”
”He's acting!”
”He always gets you, you old simpleton!” The judge's son gave Eugene an affectionate dig in the ribs.
Eugene was well liked and in the way that a big Saint Bernard dog is liked. At the latest manoeuvres, on the night that their division had made a rapid flank movement, without any apparent sense that his own load was the heavier for it, he had carried the rifle and pack of Peter Kinderling, a valet's pasty-faced little son ”Peterkin,” as he was called, was the stupid of Company B. Being generally inoffensive, the b.u.t.t of the drill sergeant, who thought that he would never learn even the manual of arms, and rounding out the variety of characters which makes for fellows.h.i.+p, he was regarded with a sympathetic kindliness by his comrades.
”But I don't think you ought to joke about the flag That's sacred!”
declared Eugene.
”Now you're talking!” said Jacob Pilzer, the butcher's son, who sat on the other side of the bench from Eugene. He was heavily built, with an undershot jaw and a patch of liverish birthmark on his cheek.
”Yes,” piped Peterkin, who had an opinion when the two strong men of the company agreed on any subject. But he spoke tentatively, nevertheless.
He was taking no risks.
”Oh, if we went to war the Bodlapoo affair would be only an excuse,”
said the manufacturer's son. ”We shall go to war as a matter of broad national policy.”
”Right you are!” agreed the banker's son. ”No emotion about it. Emotion as an international quant.i.ty is dead. Everything is business now in this business age.”
”Killing people as a broad international policy!” mused Hugo _sotto voce_, as if this were a matter of his own thoughts.
The others scarcely heard him as the manufacturer's son struck his fist in the palm of his hand resoundingly to demand attention.
”We need room in which to expand. We have eighty million people to their fifty, while our territory is only a little larger than theirs.
Our population grows; the Browns' does not!” he announced.
”But there is a remedy for that,” Hugo interjected loftly, so softly that everybody looked at him. ”Why, all the conscripts of the army for two years could take a vow not to marry,” he said. ”We could reduce the output, as your father's factory does when the market is dull. We should not have so many babies. This would be cheaper than rearing them to be slaughtered in their young manhood.”
”Hear ye! Hear ye!” shouted the doctor's son, in the midst of the hilarity that ensued. ”Hugo Mallin solves the whole problem of eugenics by destroying the field for eugenics!”
”The levity of a lot of mere unthinking privates who mistake themselves for sociological experts shall not deter me from finis.h.i.+ng my speech,”
pursued the manufacturer's son.
”Speak on!”
”Listen to the fount of wisdom play!”
”A beer if you produce an idea!”
”War must come some day. It must come if for no other reason than to stop the strikes, arouse patriotism, and give an impetus to industry. An army of five millions on our side against the Browns' three millions! Of course, they won't start it! We shall have to take the aggressive; naturally, they'll not.”
”And they'll run, they'll run, just as they always have” Eugene cried enthusiastically.
”You bet they will, or they'll be mush for our bayonets!” said Pilzer, the butcher's son.
”Will they? Do you really think they will?” asked Hugo, drawing down the corners of his mouth in profound contemplation that was actually mournful. ”I wonder, now, I wonder if they can run any faster than I can?”