"I suppose, now, you've always done it, Mark?" continued the gentleman, watching the boy's face.
"For several years, yes, sir. I've had as many as five sets of initials in that time. And the habit has saved me a lot of caps, too. If a fellow claims mine, all I have to do is to point at the three initials inside, and he gives up."
"H'm! like this, for instance," remarked the colonel, picking something up from behind a pile of books on his table and holding it out.
It was a fairly well-worn cap, and had evidently belonged to a boy. Elmer immediately sat up and began to take notice. He realized that the colonel must indeed have an object in asking Mark to drop in and see him.
For unless he was very much mistaken Elmer had seen that same cap before, many times, and on the head of his chum!
As for Mark, his eyes had opened very wide as they fastened on the article the gentleman was holding out before him.
"Will you kindly take this cap in your hands, my boy?" said the colonel, and almost mechanically Mark did so, for as yet he could not find his voice to express his mingled feelings.
"Please examine it, now, and tell me if you have ever seen it before," continued the colonel, whose heavy brows were lowered, as though under their shelter he were trying to analyze the emotions that chased each other across the face of the boy.
Mark made a pretense of looking inside and out, but it was not necessary, for the fellow who cannot instantly recognize a cap he has worn for some months must be pretty dense indeed.
"Well?" said the gentleman, with an interrogation point in the one word.