Immediately following the reading of the report Captain Murray announced the appointment of Corporal Barriscale to be first sergeant, and Corporal McCormack to be second sergeant, and directed that official warrants confirming these appointments be read accordingly.
When the company was dismissed Hal was the first to grasp the hand of the new first sergeant and congratulate him on his appointment. And he did it so frankly, with such good spirit and apparent sincerity, that his conduct should have gone a long way toward closing the breach that had opened between the two boys on the night of Chick’s rebuff, had yawned wide on the night of the meeting called to decide the question of acceptance of the prize offered by the senior Barriscale, and had never since been completely bridged over. There had, indeed, been no open hostility between them on account of these incidents. The matters had not been mentioned by either of them since their occurrence. But there was no companionship, no friendship. They were members of and officers in the same militia company, they had such communication with each other as their military duties required of them; that was all.
But both boys had grown, not only physically and mentally, but also in their outlook on life. Young Barriscale was less autocratic and arrogant, more approachable, more politic perhaps, yet he retained, nevertheless, much of his aristocratic feeling. He still believed that society was and should be divided into classes, and that while it was the privilege of some to command, it was the duty of others to obey. He approved of a democratic government indeed, provided it was sufficiently strong to hold the masses in check, and for this purpose its military arm should, in his opinion, be complete, invincible, and at all times ready for use.
McCormack, on the other hand, was still peace-loving, and more of a humanitarian than ever. He had always been a student and a dreamer, and the more he read and pondered, the more he saw of actual social conditions, the more thoroughly convinced he became that the salvation of humanity for the future lay in that leveling process by which the workers and the poor should be lifted to a higher social and economic plane, and the millionaires and aristocrats brought down to approximately the same level. Perhaps he was a socialist, he did not quite know. At any rate, he was not a radical. He believed in a democratic form of government, operated by virtue of its laws, and that its laws should be enforced, even though it became necessary to use its military arm in order to do so.