ried I want to see your request for discharge
lying here on my desk. How the devil can an officer run an organization
when one of the enlisted personnel, the corporal he's in love with,
persists in subordination?"

"I can't quit," Peggy said. "We'll need my salary, Wes, if only to pay
off our BSG quotas. What with buying Xmas presents, gifts for Mom's Day
and Pop's Day, and sending Birthday Gratuities to every name on our
combined Nearest-and-Dearest lists, we'll be living on rice and soybeans
till you make Light Colonel. Quit? Wes, if you expect to eat regular
after we're married, you'd best put me in for sergeant's stripes."

"Please, Peggy," Winfree asked. "We'll discuss this all tonight, off
duty, if I survive your father's swordplay. For now, please let letters
out to all District wholesalers, telling them of the Birthday Quotas and
the new dating procedures. Have one of the lieutenants open the _secret_
files for you--it's all under 'Operation Nativity.' You can get at it
right away."

"Very well, Captain, sir," Peggy said. "Happy Potlatch, sir." She
about-faced and marched out, banging the office door behind her.

"Happy Potlatch be damned!" Captain Winfree said, flinging his
swagger-stick toward the calendar.

* * * * *

The MacHenery home was all gables and pinnacles and spooled
porch-pillars, very like an enormous wedding-cake, every horizontal
surface now frosted with a thin layer of snow. Captain Winfree tugged
off his gauntlets, rang the bell, and stood straighter than usual to
withstand the hostile inspection of Kevin MacHenery, Peggy's father.

Mr. MacHenery opened the door. Captain Winfree, although retaining his
smile of greeting, groaned inwardly. MacHenery was wearing his canvas
fencing outfit, flat-soled shoes, and carried a foil in one hand. "My
you are a gorgeous sight, all Kelly-green and scarlet piping, like a
tropical bird that's somehow strayed into the snowfields," MacHenery
said. "Do come in, Captain, and warm your feathers."

"Thank you, sir," Winfree said, brushing the snow from his cap. He
peeled off his overcoat and hung it on the hall tree, sticking his
swagger-stick in one of its pockets. "Peggy busy?" he asked, hoping that
her appearance would preclude his being given another unsolicited
fencing-lesson.

"After having spent two hours in the bathroom with a curry-comb and a
bottle of wave-set," MacHenery said, "my daughter has finally got down
t