Arms—and Feats.

To some the distant drum is a call to arms—and feats. To others, it is mainly a tom-tom calling to the tumtum. To Youth, it is a jazz drum beating out a blither of cranky cacophonies and juggled jocundities. To the middleaged it represents the tempo of Tempus or a quickstep to hearten the heart and quicken the tread when the pack grows heavy and the feet are lead. To the aged it is nearer and clearer, for Age has caught up with the band, has shaken hands with the drummer, and has realised that the farther away you are from the drum the better it sounds.

But long may the distant drum urge on the panting populace to their divers destinies. Joan of Arc heard it across the fields of Flanders, Hannibal heard it, Alexander answered it, and when man fails to tune in to the “tum tum tum” of the big bass drum, it is a sign and a symbol that his soul is goldencrusted, lead-lined, pickled in acid of assets, and sunk in the mulloch of Mammon; his aspirations will be no higher than his hip pocket, and his only ambition will have a milled edge.

Of course there are many who have mis-coded the message of the distant drum, and many who have waded through wars and worse to get a closeup of the drum-rumbler. But mistakes will happen, and it is better to count in the scum of density than to count out the drum of Destiny.