the funniest little set of his jaw, as if he didn't quite know how to do
it, David reached for the cleaning rod. "Well," he said, "Mr. Randall is
mistaken. I clean my gun myself." Then he sat down beside Knudsen, as if
sure that the other would teach him--in which he was right. His dirty
hands at the end were a sad sight to him, and yet I think he was proud of
them too.

This morning Randall, who hasn't learned (and I question if he ever will)
how unwelcome he is in our tent, came in to brag a little--and of what!
There stands to the south of us a big hotel whose bulk is visible from
the camp, a strong temptation to all our luxurious budding Napoleons.
Randall was there last night, and came in to tell us what he had to eat.
Particularly he enjoyed, he said, the fresh asparagus tips. Pickle's envy
overcame his dislike, and he had nothing to say. But David's eye gleamed.
"Fresh asparagus tips?" he asked. "Scarcely that." "Indeed?" demanded
Randall. "I know asparagus when I eat it." "But not fresh asparagus,"
countered David. "It's not to be had in September. Canned tips, Randall,
that's all." And Pickle, in his relief, cackled aloud.

I have of late told you so little of our officers that I must say
something about them here, of officers as a class, and ours in
particular. We are at the stage of theoretical conferences--after the
regimental meeting each night on the drill-field is a company conference
at each company tent, where the non-coms are expected to go, and where
all others are invited. Consequently the captain or lieutenant has forty
men there each night, crowded close around the table and packed at the
open side of the tent. We are learning the theory of field skirmish work,
with a glance at the method of advancing by road into an enemy's country.

And I must say that our officers have at their tongues' ends the whole of
the principle that is embodied in that strange little book, the drill
regulations. As soon as you have got beyond the mere parade-ground work
(and that is all the civilian ever sees) the book brings you to a region
where nothing else is considered than the one thing, attack, attack,
attack. There is something very grim and inexorable in this primer of
war, this A B C of the principles of destruction. And if the innocent
little pocket manual contains a codification, so condensed as to be
amazing, of the ways to slay your enemy, the officers are ready with
every possible amplification of its dr