“One is that you deserted from the army at some earlier time and that—”
“Pardon me, general,” interposed Dad stiffly, “but if you can persuade the man who voiced such a lie to face me with it, I shall be your debtor.”
“Who can nail army gossip? One man guesses at a thing to-day. To-morrow fifty men are quoting it as a proven fact.
“I like you, Dadd. You are a good deal of a man. That is why I have bothered to advise you in this matter. Not officially, but as man to man. If you do not care to speak I have no wish to urge you. That is all.”
He turned back to a notebook in which close-scrawled hieroglyphics crammed every page. Dad saluted, turned, and walked away.
At the top step of the porch Dad halted, wheeled and, on impulse, returned to the table where Hooker lounged.
“I thank you, general,” he said, speaking in a rush, as though fearing to lose hold on his new-made resolve. “It was kind of you to take an interest in me, and I am sorry if I seemed ungracious. I—I served for more than two years in the United States army, in the Mexican War. I was a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry and I was afterward attached to General Taylor’s staff.”
Hooker looked up in quick interest. Speaking from an almost phenomenal memory of American war-history, he hastily interjected:
“There was no officer on Taylor’s staff—and no commissioned officer in the Mexican War—named James Dadd. I will stake my reputation on that.”
“No, sir. ‘Dadd’ is not my name. I—I assumed it when I reëntered the service.”