the door of which he had been standing, while Captain Lowndes touched
his hat to him very slightly and went on to the larger room towards
which the others were proceeding. As the Colonel swung back the door,
Smith caught a very quick glance within, and saw a table, with bottles,
a pack of cards, a couple of dice-boxes, and four or five persons
seated, lounging and smoking. The party appeared to him as if they
might have been interrupted in a little harmless Sunday afternoon
amusement, and as if they were only waiting for the return of the
Colonel to the room, to renew that amusement in a very pleasant and
effective manner. That impression was not removed by his hearing, after
he had passed through the open door into the other room, a suspicious
sound like the rattling of dice and another sound very like the chinking
of coin, proceeding from the smaller apartment.

Smith and Brown found very little in the officers' room, dignified by
the name of "regimental headquarters," demanding particular record.
There were two red pine tables set together and forming a counter,
behind which the regimental officers were supposed to be located; and on
the end of the tables nearest the front of the house was a small desk,
with pigeon-holes, at which, by the same fiction, the Adjutant was
supposed to be always sitting, performing the arduous duties of his
office. Supported by nails in the ceiling were two flag-staffs, their
butts shaped to fit the muzzles of short rifles, and from the upper end
of each depending one of the "guidons" of the regiment, gorgeously blue
in color and lettered in shaded gold--understood to be the gift of
certain ladies who properly appreciated the talents and devotion of the
officers and the hopeful prospects of the regiment under formation.
Behind the tables was a mantel; and on it stood two decanters partially
filled with liquor, a plate of crackers and another of cheese. A
Lieutenant was seated at the Adjutant's desk, engaged in filling up
blank leaves-of-absence for each in turn, of a disorderly crowd of
twenty or thirty soldiers who pressed forward from the door to receive
them. Two or three of this crowd presented former leaves, to have them
extended. One of these was refused, the Lieutenant laboring under some
sort of impression that a private who had been three weeks under
enlistment, and absent all that time on leave, would not become very
proficient in drill unless he spent at least one week at the en