written communication, most
respectful yet urgent in terms, requesting that the officer might be
designated without further delay, and as no answer was received up to
noon, Loring followed it with a personal call upon the chief of staff,
who said the General had the matter under advisement.

"My luggage goes aboard the Columbia to-night, sir, and I should be
aboard by ten o'clock to-morrow," said Loring. Colonel Strain coughed
dubiously.

"It might be impracticable to relieve you from duty so soon. The General
is in communication with the War Department upon the subject, and
possibly if--you--had had the courtesy to call upon the General or upon
me, his chief-of-staff, and to explain your wishes, the thing might have
been arranged."

Loring flushed. He saw through the motive at a glance, and could have
found it easy to express his opinion in very few words. There are times
when a man is so goaded that an outburst is the only natural relief, but
it is none the less fatal. There might even be method in the colonel's
manner, and Loring curbed, with long-practiced hand, both tongue and
temper. It would have been warrantable to say that the manner of both
the General and his chief-of-staff had been too repellent to to invite
calls, but he knew that, whatever the merits of the case, superior
officers, like inferior papers, always have the last word. He might be
only inviting reprimand. Without a word, therefore, he faced about,
went straight to the telegraph office down the avenue and wired to
Washington. "Steamer sails noon Saturday. Not yet relieved. What
instructions?"

By that hour there would be no one in the office of the Chief of
Engineers at Washington, but Loring addressed it direct to the home of
the assistant, upon whose interest in the case he had reason to rely,
and then returned at once to his desk. Were he not to be there it would
place it in the power of a would-be oppressor to say the officer
designated to receive the property had called during office hours and
could not find Mr. Loring. And then, with such patience as he could
command, Loring received the visitors who kept dropping in, among them
the boisterous Moreland, whose Bay of Biscay voice had become almost as
trying to his host as to the other occupants of the building, and during
the long afternoon awaited the action of the General upon his morning's
letter and that of the War Department upon his telegram.

Four o'clock came at last. Office h