, thunder!" groaned Wallis, saddened by that saddest of all
thoughts, "Too late!" "Well, least said soonest mended. I must wobble
back to my Major."

"He'll send you off to some other camp as dry as this one. Wait ten
minutes, and he'll be asleep. Lie down on my blanket and light your
pipe. I want to talk to you about, official business--about our
would-be Brigadier."

"Oh, _your_ turn will come some day," mumbled Wallis, remembering
Gildersleeve's jealousy of the brigade commander--a jealousy which only
gave tongue when aroused by "commissary." "If you do as well as usual
to-morrow you can have your own brigade."

"I suppose you think we are all going to do well to-morrow," scoffed
old Grumps, whose utterance by this time stumbled. "I suppose you
expect to whip and to have a good time. I suppose you brag on fighting
and enjoy it."

"I like it well enough when it goes right; and it generally does go
right with this brigade. I should like it better if the rebs would fire
higher and break quicker."

"That depends on the way those are commanded whose business it is to
break them," growled Old Grumps. "I don't say but what we are rightly
commanded," he added, remembering his duty to superiors. "I concede and
acknowledge that our would-be Brigadier knows his military business.
But the blessing of God, Wallis! I believe in Waldron as a soldier. But
as a man and a Christian, faugh!"

Gildersleeve had clearly emptied his canteen unassisted; he never
talked about Christianity when perfectly sober.

"What was your last remark?" inquired Wallis, taking his pipe from his
mouth to grin. Even a superior officer might be chaffed a little in the
darkness.

"I made no last remark," asserted the Colonel with dignity. "I'm not
a-dying yet. If I said anything last it was a mere exclamation of
disgust--the disgust of an officer and gentleman. I suppose you know
something about our would-be Brigadier. I suppose you think you know
something about him."

"Bet you I know _all_ about him" affirmed Wallis. "He enlisted in the
Old Tenth as a common soldier. Before he had been a week in camp they
found that he knew his biz, and they made him a sergeant. Before we
started for the field the Governor got his eye on him and shoved him
into a lieutenancy. The first battle h'isted him to a captain. And the
second--bang! whiz! he shot up to colonel right over the heads of
everybody, line and field. Nobody in the Old Tenth grumbled. They saw
t