the main army of Death." Then he notices with a realizing eye how tall his sons are growing, and how independent, and how—well, he would call it saucy if they were not so tall. He has to contradict them firmly because—well, they have no business at their age to know so much more about the point than their father. But he fails to feel impressive in the assertion of his authority, for even when they seem to assent, he has a subtle uneasy sense that they are merely humoring him, with an indulgent filial smile in their sleeves. Presently he hears one of them referring to him as the Old Man.
"'The Old Man!' Good Heavens!" he exclaims. "How old am I? Forty?—Forty is nothing, nowadays. President Eliot went bicycling before breakfast at seventy-five. Lounsbury played the New England tennis champion at seventy five. At forty, a man is but a mere fledgling."
So he soothes and flatters himself. But in this season of disillusion another fact gradually establishes itself in his awakened con-
