ere were five who liked there were at
least twenty who didn't, and these made up in quantity what they lacked
in quality.

To sum up the situation, Lieutenant Doyle's expression was perhaps the
most comprehensive, as giving the views of the great majority: "If I
were his K. O. and this crowd the coort, he'd 'a' been kicked out of the
service months ago."

And yet, entertaining or expressing so hostile an opinion of the
laughing lieutenant, Mr. Doyle did not hesitate to seek his society on
many an occasion when he wasn't wanted, and to solace himself at
Waring's sideboard at any hour of the day or night, for Waring kept what
was known as "open house" to all comers, and the very men who wondered
how he could afford it and who predicted his speedy swamping in a mire
of debt and disgrace were the very ones who were most frequently to be
found loafing about his gallery, smoking his tobacco and swigging his
whiskey, a pretty sure sign that the occupant of the quarters, however,
was absent. With none of their number had he ever had open quarrel.
Remarks made at his expense and reported to him in moments of bibulous
confidence he treated with gay disdain, often to the manifest
disappointment of his informant. In his presence even the most reckless
of their number were conscious of a certain restraint. Waring, as has
been said, detested foul language, and had a very quiet but effective
way of suppressing it, often without so much as uttering a word. These
were the rough days of the army, the very roughest it ever knew, the
days that intervened between the incessant strain and tension of the
four years' battling and the slow gradual resumption of good order and
military discipline. The rude speech and manners of the camp still
permeated every garrison. The bulk of the commissioned force was made up
of hard fighters, brave soldiers and loyal servants of the nation, to be
sure, but as a class they had known no other life or language since the
day of their muster-in. Of the line officers stationed in and around
this Southern city in the lovely spring-tide of 186-, of a force
aggregating twenty companies of infantry and cavalry, there were fifty
captains and lieutenants appointed from the volunteers, the ranks, or
civil life, to one graduated from West Point. The predominance was in
favor of ex-sergeants, corporals, or company clerks,--good men and true
when they wore the chevrons, but who, with a few marked and most
admirable exce