CHAPTER XXII
B ALTAZAR and Quong Ho were finishing lunch when Godfrey, flushed and excited, burst in with his news. An enthusiastically sympathetic parent failed to detect an unusual note, almost one of vainglory, in the boy’s speech and manner. He vaunted his success, proclaimed his entry on a brilliant career. He talked wildly. This to be a war to end war? A maudlin visionary’s dream. We might crush the Hun this time and have a sort of peace—a rotten politician’s peace, but the Hun would apply himself to the intensive cultivation of Hate, and in twenty years at the latest would have another go at Frightfulness. And that’s where the modern scientific soldier would come in. That was his career. He saw it all before him. And Baltazar, led away by the boy’s bright promise, clapped both his
