Lang, when on sentry duty, was the admiration of all the boys, he looked so much like a regular, straight and stiff as a pikestaff, and about as stout. The way be brought people to a halt was enough to bring on heart trouble. When he saluted an officer he brought his piece to the carry with a snap that startled the horses in the street. His great ambition was to become an orderly for General Ruger.
This brings us to the great indignity which was put upon the Keeley Club, an indignity that will be remembered by its members as long as the memory of it lasts. Their High Priest Lang and P. J. Kennedy, another prominent officer in the organization, were summoned to Quartermaster Cluff’s tent. From this tent all good things flowed, particularly the beer. Visions of oceans of it, enough to satisfy even their thirsty souls floated before their sight. With light hearts and willing steps, they sped towards the tent. Yes, there was the keg, clothed in a bag of ice, just discernible within its shade. Its bright brass faucet shining in the distance like a star of hope. See! the quartermaster is slowly drawing a bowl of the amber fluid; ah! how refreshing it looks. The feet that would rather run than walk on such occasions soon brought them to their destination. They saluted in their best style; the quartermaster saluted. Lang’s face broke into its most insinuating smile, while the Yolo Farmer mopped the perspiration from his classic brow with a linen napkin, and remarked that it was very warm. All this time the quartermaster was sipping his beer with exasperating leisure; between sips making very commonplace queries. He remarked that Lang looked very thin, but that Kennedy seems to be getting stouter if anything. Great God! their tongues were cracking. Would he never get through, and invite them to slake their burning thirst? But everything has an end. Finally with a sigh of satisfaction he put down his glass, and disappeared from before the wondering eyes of Lang and Kennedy into his tent, from which he soon emerged, pick in one hand and shovel in the other, and placing them in the passive hands of our now paralyzed comrades, bade them follow him. Some fifty feet away he halted, pointed to the ground and commanded, “Dig,” and they dug. For hours these gentlemen, strangers to hard work, delved into the earth, under a broiling sun, like common laborers.
THE YOLO FARMER AND HIGH PRIEST AT WORK.
The boys’ funds were getting low about this time; in fact a great many left town without any funds, at all. Clifford was known to be in a chronic state of financial debility. When he marched down the street jingling in his pocket a bunch of keys which sounded like many silver dollars crying forth, “spend me”; he was questioned on all sides as to where he made the raise. “Oh”! said he, “I’ve just been up to Adjutant Williams’ tent, and got a little advance.” “What”! they exclaimed, and waiting for no more they immediately made a bee line for the adjutant’s tent. The adjutant loves a joke as much as any one, and, though puzzled at first, soon understood and put the boys off with various excuses. He told Billy O’Brien, who was a most earnest applicant, that the paymaster had a breakdown on his way to camp, and would not arrive for some time. Billy went away, and when surrounded by his tent-mates, who anxiously inquired as to his success, quoted the following lines from Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dragoon, for their delectation:
“And though up late an’airly
Our pay comes so rarely
That divil a farthing we’ve ever to spare.
They say some disaster
Befell the paymaster