geranium did not lose any time, but married another feller
before we got to Stone River. That made me hate the blasted caterwaul
worse'n ever. Then that white-eyed, moon-struck Alfonso used to be
yowling it at every chance, until he went to the hospital, and he got
all the rest so that they were sputtering rags and tags of it. But I've
been sorer than a bile on the condemned sick calfishness ever since I
brung my chum Jim Bridgewater off the field at Chickamauga, and watched
him die as the moon rose, back there at McFarland Gap. Well, what do
these smarties do but fill up Scruggs with the idea that the best way to
make himself forever solid with me was to stroll down close to my tent
and casually let off 'Bingen on the Rhine' in his best style. I'd just
got down to work on them pesky pay-rolls, having kept Monaghan two days
in the guard-house, so's to be sure that he'd be sober enough to help
me--and you know Monaghan's lightning with the pen when he's sober--when
that possessed sap-sucker Scruggs began blatting out 'Bingen on the
Rhine' till you could hear him down to the Colonel's quarters. It made
me so mad that I knocked over the ink as I jumped up, and spoiled the
triplicate rolls that we'd got about half made out. I snatched up a club
to simply mash the bawling brat, but they got him away before I could
reach 'im. They explained to Scruggs afterward that I was subject to
fits whenever the moon was in her last quarter, and they'd forgotten to
look at the almanac that evening. O, but I'll soak 'em for that yet."

"Trouble is," said Si, laughing, "the boys've bin layin' around doin'
nothin' too long. They're fuller o' devilment than a dog is of fleas."

"But I haint told you half," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "Them
smarties were quick to find out that Alf Russell and Jim Humphreys
leaned strongly toward religion, and they filled 'em with the idea that
Cap McGillicuddy was a very devout man, and held family devotions every
evening in his tent, in which his company joined."

"Great goodness," gasped Si. "They never heard Cap's remarks when we
balked on a right wheel in company column."

"Well," continued the Orderly, "Cap had been waxed by Cap Summerville
two games hand-running, and they were nip-and-tuck on the third,
and just as impatient and cross as they always are when they're
neck-and-neck in the last heat. The tent-flap raised, and in walked
Russell and Humphreys soft and quietlike, as if they were going