“Corporal Townsend,” said the colonel, “what is the first duty of a soldier?”
“To obey,” answered the corporal, again saluting.
Just at this critical moment, when the extent of Lou’s knowledge of “tictacs,” as the new recruit once called it, was about to be thoroughly investigated Lieutenant Hosmer appeared, bearing the kodak.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready!” answered Lou.
The kodak was about to snap, when the colonel ordered “About, face!”
Promptly obeying the order, Lou “came about,” and the picture became, not a front, but a rear view.
Lou had shown that he could act as well as answer, and as a reward had his much desired “parade rest” taken.
Later in the day, Lou having occasion to drop in at the hospital, he discovered that there were four unused hair mattresses, neatly covered with bedclothes, stretched on the floor of one of the rooms. What a shock the sight gave him, poor man. He began to feel “symptoms,” and soon “had ’em bad.” He wandered round the grounds, casting longing looks upward at the windows of the room in which those unused luxuries lay.
“Was he sick enough yet?” he wondered, “or would Doc O’Brien give him pills, not a bed?”