"Hello!
You're Doc--Mr. Queed, aren't you?"
Queed, surprised, admitted his identity.
"Ye-a-a-a!" said the young man, in a mighty voice. This time he shouted
it directly at a tall old gentleman whose horse was just then dancing
by. The gentleman smiled, and waved his hand at the flaunted Panama.
"A fine-looking man," said Queed.
"My father," said the young man. "God bless his heart!"
"Was your father in the war?"
"Was he in the war? My dear sir, you might say that he was the war. But
you could scrape this town with a fine-tooth comb without finding
anybody of his age that wasn't in the war."
The necessity for a new demonstration checked his speech for a moment.
Queed said: "Who are these veterans? What sort of people are they?"
"The finest fellows in the world," said the young man. "An occasional
dead-beat among them, of course, but it's amazing how high an average of
character they strike, considering that they came out of four years of
war--war's demoralizing, you know!--with only their shirts to their
backs, and often those were only borrowed. You'll find some mighty solid
business men in the ranks out there, and then on down to the humblest
occupations.
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