Well--" Here, by some chance, the recollection of a word of Dora's flickered into his chaotic mind, and he had a brighter moment.

"My opponent said she proved all war is wrong--or something like that, anyhow.

She said she proved it was wrong to fight, no matter what.

Well, if she wasn't a girl, anybody that wanted to get her into a fight could prob'ly do it." He did not add that he would like to be the person to make the experiment (if Dora weren't a girl), nor did the thought enter his mind until an hour or so later.

"Well," he added, "I suppose there is little more to be said." He was so right, in regard to his own performance, at least, that, thereupon drying up utterly, he proceeded to stand, a speechless figure in the midst of a multitudinous silence, for an eternity lasting forty-five seconds.