itched for me close to that of my chief
lieutenant, came Kearny, indomitable, smiling, bright-eyed, bearing
no traces of the buffets of his evil star. Rather was his aspect
that of a heroic martyr whose tribulations were so high-sourced and
glorious that he even took a splendour and a prestige from them.

"'Well, Captain,' said he, 'I guess you realize that Bad-Luck Kearny
is still on deck. It was a shame, now, about that gun. She only
needed to be slewed two inches to clear the rail; and that's why I
grabbed that rope's end. Who'd have thought that a sailor--even a
Sicilian lubber on a banana coaster--would have fastened a line in a
bow-knot? Don't think I'm trying to dodge the responsibility,
Captain. It's my luck.'

"'There are men, Kearny,' said I gravely, 'who pass through life
blaming upon luck and chance the mistakes that result from their own
faults and incompetency. I do not say that you are such a man. But
if all your mishaps are traceable to that tiny star, the sooner we
endow our colleges with chairs of moral astronomy, the better.'

"'It isn't the size of the star that counts,' said Kearny; 'it's
the quality. Just the way it is with women. That's why they give
the biggest planets masculine names, and the little stars feminine
ones--to even things up when it comes to getting their work in.
Suppose they had called my star Agamemnon or Bill McCarty or
something like that instead of Phoebe. Every time one of those old
boys touched their calamity button and sent me down one of their
wireless pieces of bad luck, I could talk back and tell 'em what I
thought of 'em in suitable terms. But you can't address such remarks
to a Phoebe.'

"'It pleases you to make a joke of it, Kearny,' said I, without
smiling. 'But it is no joke to me to think of my Gatling mired in
the river ooze.'

"'As to that,' said Kearny, abandoning his light mood at once,
'I have already done what I could. I have had some experience in
hoisting stone in quarries. Torres and I have already spliced three
hawsers and stretched them from the steamer's stern to a tree on
shore. We will rig a tackle and have the gun on terra firma before
noon to-morrow.'

"One could not remain long at outs with Bad-Luck Kearny.

"'Once more,' said I to him, 'we will waive this question of luck.
Have you ever had experience in drilling raw troops?'

"'I was first sergeant and drill-master,' said Kearny, 'in the
Chilean army for one year. And captain of artill