“GUESS?” echoed Dad, returning the general’s amused gaze with an expression upon his own face of gross perplexity. “I—I don’t understand, sir.”
General Hooker seemed to realize that his habitual, easy informality toward his subordinates—for which they adored him and whereon none had been known to presume—had gone well-nigh beyond bounds.
For he checked his laughter and, with a touch of authority in his big voice, said:
“Make your report.”
Briefly Dad outlined the orders given him by his brigade commander, the adventures he had undergone on the previous day, and the clever scout work and hard riding which had marked the night stage of his journey.
Hooker listened with real interest; his eyes, under half-closed lids, narrowly reading the speaker’s features. Yet when the short recital was finished the mirth sprang back unbidden into the general’s tanned face.
“Sergeant Dadd,” he asked whimsically, “do you ever think?”
The odd question, tenfold more strange coming from a general officer to an enlisted man, deepened Dad’s bewilderment.
“Think?” he repeated.
“Yes. Or do you prefer to be the supposedly model soldier who works like a machine and who leaves to his superior officers the task of thinking?”