to say 'modernity' and 'differentiate' again, for he came from
our middle West, where they encounter education too suddenly, and it
would take three generations of him to speak clean English. But with
all his polysyllabic wallowing, he showed himself keen-minded, pat with
authorities, a spruce young graduate among these dingy Rocky Mountain
campaigners. They had fought and thirsted and frozen; the books that he
knew were not written when they went to school; and so far as war is to
be mastered on paper, his equipment was full and polished while theirs
was meagre and rusty.

And yet, if you know things that other and older men do not, it is as
well not to mention them too hastily. These soldiers wished that they
could have been taught what he knew; but they watched young Augustus
unfolding himself with a gaze that might have seemed chill to a less
highly abstract thinker. He, however, rose from the table pleasantly
edified by himself, and hopeful for them. And as he left them,
"Good-night, ladies and gentlemen," he said; "we shall meet again."

"Oh yes," said the Doctor. "Again and again."

"He's given me indigestion," said Bainbridge.

"Take some metric system," said Starr.

"And lie flat on your trajectory," said the Doctor.

"I hate hair parted in the middle for a man," said Mrs. Guild.

"And his superior eye-glasses," said Mrs. Bainbridge.

"His staring conceited teeth," hissed Mrs. Starr.

"I don't like children slopping their knowledge all over me," said the
Doctor's wife.

"He's well brushed, though," said Mrs. Duane, seeking the bright side.
"He'll wipe his feet on the mat when he comes to call."

"I'd rather have mud on my carpet than that bandbox in any of my
chairs," said Mrs. Starr.

"He's no fool," mused the Doctor. "But, kingdom come, what an ass!"

"Well, gentlemen," said the commanding officer (and they perceived a
flavor of the official in his tone), "Mr. Albumblatt is just twenty-one.
I don't know about you; but I'll never have that excuse again."

"Very well, Captain, we'll be good," said Mrs. Bainbridge.

"And gr-r-ateful," said Mrs. Starr, rolling her eyes piously. "I
prophecy he'll entertain us."

The Captain's demeanor remained slightly official; but walking home, his
Catherine by his side in the dark was twice aware of that laugh of his,
twinkling in the recesses of his opinions. And later, going to bed, a
little joke took him so unready that it got out before he could suppress