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have daughters. Parlor breeds, you might say—but there’s no shame to it, when it’s accident. Somebody has to sit and talk. And breed.”
    The Judge understood at once what he was getting at, if not why. His own father had been the wrong age for all the wars of his time and had often talked about it; he himself had been the right age in 1917, but the wrong size. His own son, too young now, in any event would be saved. And he had a daughter. He wouldn’t mind hearing what further the old man had to say—but pushed by the glances of the men around, he placed a hand on Olney’s shoulder.
    “Mostly people say ‘at the front,’ don’t they still, Simon?” Olney looked up briefly, and—Simon, would have sworn it—shrewdly, then began counting on his fingers. “‘With the Blue’ or ‘with the Gray’ I b’lieve we said, or else the names of places, like you do in any war. Then, in the Spanish one, maybe we’d say of a man that he was with the Rough Riders, or yes, ‘with the Fleet.’ Wasn’t that it? And then—” He began chanting, nodding with it too. “Over there, o -ver there —”
    “Chauncey,” said Borkan, coming up on his other side, “don’t you think you better—”
    “But what’s it they say now, Simon?” said Chauncey, ignoring the other. “It escapes my mind.” He rat-tatted impatiently on the death notice. “What’s it they say now?”
    The Judge thought a moment. “‘Overseas,’ do you mean? But they’ll still say ‘at Alamein’ about your grandson, or ‘in North Africa,’ Chauncey. Things don’t change that much.” It was always best to bring the old back to the concrete. In spite of all, they appreciated it.
    “‘Overseas.’ That’s it. Thank you.” He patted the newspaper gently. “Not my grandson. My great-grandson. But thank you for understanding what I was after.” Even seated, the old man was almost eye to eye with him. “In my time, we always sat up with a man, as we called it. Something like a wake—but at any time the news came to us. Two months or two years later, we always sat up with a man’s spirit. Or tried to. And I thought—what better place than with all these men here?”
    The doctor came forward with a glass someone had passed, and held it out. “Have some brandy.”
    Olney took it with a nod. “A toast to him? Or for me?” Glass in hand, he looked from face to face slowly. He was grinning, eyes, brows and that flexible mouth, as when first he had spoken to Borkan. He’d probably never looked less confused in his life. He seemed now to note the turkey wattles of one man, the lemon-shine of another’s nude head, the red and mauve cheeks of sport, or of alcohol. “Just for me, I think. No toast. There’s nobody young enough here in this room, have you noticed that?” He tossed off the brandy, and set the glass down so hard that the paper fell to the rug. “Nobody! There’s nobody here young enough to mourn a young man—as he should be mourned.” He stood up.
    Borkan was just in front of him, not disheveled with the evening, consciously the darer, the carefully irreverent, as his section of the profession affected to be. “Some of us were counted on in the last war, Justice Olney. I don’t know what you’re driving at. And some of us will send our sons to this one.” How rhythmically the men talked here, when they chose!
    Olney looked delighted. He had broken in. “Just so, Nathan. I’m sure you will. I wasn’t trying to asperse. And the middle-aged will always do their duty, Simon said it—things don’t change that much. But that’s what I—Guess I was trying to say that too. Something about the way it always is.” He looked very old now. “You see, I wasn’t ashamed of not going, when I couldn’t. Young men don’t really want to go, no matter what you say. Not in their heart of hearts. And I’ve enjoyed my life, all the ages I ever was.” He paused, bewildered. “The middle-aged are nowhere though, are they, if