"Note-book? Article? Very good. Do for a Richmond paper. Credentials? Where—Oh!"
"Sign it J.R. Mavering, and tell 'em the price is forty dollars."
The colonel was a small man, high-voiced, quick-eyed, but not without a certain cheerfulness. He glanced up from the papers with an appreciative twinkle. The men slouched easily in their saddles. The horses stamped and shifted.
"Here! Give these back to him."
"Don't we take him, colonel?"
"No. What for? Give him back everything. All ready! Forward! Wait!" He pulled up suddenly.
"Mr. Mavering." The little colonel was dignified.
Mavering pocketed his property calmly, as if in the common flux of things, the flowing change of time, scene, and event, it was not strange, whatever went and came, or however suddenly. Anyway, this world was a fleeting show, an incessant comedy without plot.
"Sir."