ny. Hum--where's Dalton?"

"The Adjutant went to Boston yesterday," was the response of Lowndes.
"Said he had business, though as he had a girl with him when he stepped
on board the boat, I suspect his business was rather personal."

"D--n him!" muttered the Colonel, between his teeth. Then louder, to
Lowndes: "I thought I told you to request him, if you saw him, not to
leave the city again without permission from _me_! It seems you _have_
seen him; and why were my orders not obeyed?" The Colonel spoke now with
great dignity, and drew himself up so that the eagles on his
shoulder-straps were at least half an inch higher than when he was
squatted down into easy position.

"Your orders _were_ obeyed," answered the Captain. "I _did_ tell him."

"And what did he say?" asked the Colonel, lifting his eyebrows with some
appearance of interest.

"He said," replied the Captain, enunciating his words very clearly, as
if he had no objection to their producing their full weight on his
superior--"That Colonel Egbert Crawford might go to h-ll, and he would
go to Boston."

"Did he?--d--n him!" said the Colonel, who seemed to have a small bottle
of profanity lately uncorked, or one that he certainly was not in the
habit of uncorking in the presence of those on whom he wished to produce
a different impression.

"Yes he did," answered the Captain. "He said a little more. Perhaps you
would like to have _that_, while I am at it?"

"That?--yes, out with the whole of it!" spoke the Colonel, with another
oath which need not be recorded here as any additional seasoning.

"He took occasion to remark, where the lady who was with him could hear
it," Lowndes went on--"that he didn't care a d--n for you, and that you
dare not make a complaint against him at Albany, a bit more than you
dare jump into a place that is even hotter than the weather is here
to-day."

"Did he--the infernal hound!" broke out the Colonel, his dark brows
literally corrugated with rage. "I'll teach him whether I _dare_ or not,
before I am forty-eight hours older!" But either there _was_ something
behind the curtain, or Colonel Egbert Crawford was a man of most angelic
temper, for the moment after he broke out into a laugh that was not of
the most musical order and said: "Oh, well--Dalton is a pretty good
fellow, after all, and perhaps the next Adjutant would be a worse one
for the regiment."

With these words Colonel Egbert Crawford passed into the side room by