human
Duel? Lord's sake, man! With whom?
gpt
With Fate. Now, listen! The Master's tones became more animated. A little of the inward fires had begun to burn through his self-restraint.
human
Listen to me, and not a word till I'm done! You're dryrotting for life, man. Dying for it, gasping for it, eating your heart out for it! So am I. So are twenty-five or thirty men we know, between us, in this city. That's all true, eh?
gpt
Some!
human
Yes! We wouldn't have to go outside New York to find at least twenty-five or thirty in the same box we're in. All men who've been through trench work, air work, life-and-death work on various fronts. Men of independent means. Men to whom office work and club life and all this petty stuff, here, is like dish-water after champagne! Dare-devils, all of them, that wouldn't stop at the gates of Hell!
gpt
The gates of Hell? demanded Bohannan, his brow wrinkling with glad astonishment.
human
What d'you mean by that, now?
gpt
Just what I say! It's possible to gather together a kind of unofficial, _sub rosa_, private little Foreign Legion of our own, Bohannan--all battle-scarred men, all men with at least one decoration and some with half a dozen. With that Legion, nothing would be impossible!
human
We've all done the conventional thing, long enough. Now we're going to do the unconventional thing. We've been all through the known. Now we're going after the unknown. And Hell is liable to be no name for it, I tell you that!
gpt
Tell me more! he commanded.
human
What are we going to do?
gpt
Going to see the stuff that's in us, and in twenty-five or thirty more of our kind. The stuff, the backbone, the heart that's in you, Bohannan! That's in me! In all of us!
human
Great, great! That's me! Bohannan's cigarette smoldered, unheeded, in his fingers. The soul of him was thrilling with great visions.
gpt
I'm with you! Whither bound?
human
To Paradise--or Hell!