o the regiment and the commanding officer. A laugh rippled
down the ranks of the other companies; even the spectators smiled, and
something sounded like swearing by the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major.

Alspaugh lifted his plumed hat, and wiped the beaded perspiration from
his brow with the back of one of the yellow gauntlets.

"Order an 'about face,'" whispered the Orderly-Sergeant, whose face was
burning with shame at the awkward position in which the company found
itself.

"ABOUT--FACE!" gasped Alspaugh.

The men turned on their heels.

"Side-step to the right," whispered the Orderly.

"Side-step to the right," repeated Alspaugh, mechanically.

The men took short side-steps, and following the orders which Alspaugh
repeated from the whispered suggestions of the Orderly, the company came
clumsily forward into its place, "dressed," and "opened ranks to the
rear." When at the command of "parade-rest," Alspaugh dropped his
saber's point to the ground, he did it with the crushed feeling of
a strutting cock which has been flung into the pond and emerges with
dripping feathers.

He raised his heart in sincere thanksgiving that he was at last through,
for there was nothing more for him to do during the parade, except to
stand still, and at its conclusion the Orderly would have to march the
company back to its quarters.

But his woes had still another chapter. The Inspector-General had come
to camp to inspect the regiment, and he was on the ground.

Forty years of service in the regular army, with promotion averaging one
grade every ten years, making him an old man and a grandfather before he
was a Lieutenant-Colonel, had so surcharged Col. Murbank's nature with
bitterness as to make even the very air in his vicinity seem roughly
astringent. The wicked young Lieutenants who served with him on the
Plains used to say that his bark was worse than his bite, because no
reasonable bite could ever be so bad as his bark. They even suggested
calling him "Peruvian Bark," because a visit to his quarters was worse
than a strong does of quinia.

"Yeth, that'th good," said the lisping wit of the crowd. "Evely bite ith
a bit, ain't it? And the wortht mutht be a bitter, ath he ith."

The Colonel believed tha the whole duty of man consisted in loving the
army regulations, and in keeping their commandments. The best part of
all virtue was to observe them to the letter; the most abhorrent form of
vice, to violate or disregard even thei