"S. G. WARING."

"Well, for consummate impudence this beats the Jews!" exclaimed Brax.
"Orderly, my compliments to Captain Cram, and say I wish to see him at
once, if he's back from stables."

Now, as has been said, Cram had had no time to change to undress
uniform, but Mrs. Cram had received the orderly's message, had informed
that martial Mercury that the captain was not yet back from stables, and
that she would tell him at once on his return. Well she knew that
mischief was brewing, and her woman's wit was already enlisted in behalf
of her friend. Hurriedly pencilling a note, she sent a messenger to her
liege, still busy with his horses, to bid him come to her, if only for a
moment, on his way to the office. And when he came, heated, tired, but
bubbling over with eagerness to tell her of the fun they had been having
with Brax, she met him with a cool tankard of "shandygaff," which he had
learned to like in England among the horse-artillery fellows, and
declared the very prince of drinks after active exercise in hot weather.
He quaffed it eagerly, flung off his shako and kissed her gratefully,
and burst all at once into laughing narration of the morning's work, but
she checked him:

"Ned, dear, don't stop for that yet. I know you're too full of tact to
let Colonel Braxton see it was any fun for you, and he's waiting at the
office. Something tells me it's about Mr. Waring. Now put yourself in
Mr. Waring's place. Of course he ought never to have made that
engagement until he had consulted you, but he never dreamed that there
would be a review to-day, and so he invited the Allertons to breakfast
with him at Moreau's and go to the _matinee_."

"Why, that rascal Ananias said it was to breakfast at the general's,"
interrupted the battery commander.

"Well, perhaps he was invited there too. I believe I did hear something
of that. But he had made this arrangement with the Allertons. Now, of
course, if review were over at ten he could just about have time to
dress and catch the eleven-o'clock car, but that would make it very
late, and when Bay Billy broke away from Ananias nobody could catch him
for over half an hour. Mr. Ferry had taken the section, Mr. Waring
wasn't needed, and---- Why, Ned, when I drove in, fearing to
find him injured, and saw him standing there the picture of
consternation and despair, and he told me about his engagement, I said
myself, 'Why don't you go now?' I told him it was