"
"Helen will be happy over the change, won't she?" remarked Mary.
"Helen!" ejaculated Captain Charlie, with more emphasis perhaps than
the occasion demanded.
"She won't give it so much as a thought. Why should she? She can go on
with her dinners and card parties and balls and country club affairs
with the silk-hatted slackers of her set, just the same as if nothing
had happened."
Mary laughed. "Seems to me I have heard something like that
before--'silk-hatted slackers'--it sounds familiar."
Captain Charlie watched her suspiciously.
The father laughed quietly.
"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with an air of triumph. "It was Bobby Whaley
who said it. I remember thinking at the time that it probably came to
him from his father, who of course got it from Jake Vodell. Silk-hatted
slackers--sounds like Jake, doesn't it, father?"
Captain Charlie grinned sheepishly. "I know it was a rotten thing to
say," he admitted. "Some of the best and bravest men in our army were
silk-hatters at home. They were in the ranks, too, a lot of them--just
like John Ward. And some of the worst cowards and shirkers and slackers
that ever lived belonged to our ancient and noble order of the
horny-handed sons of toil, that Jake Vodell orates about.
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