“Oh, a one-legged army man. She’s taken a fancy to him, her mother tells me. He has a leg up here in the Medical Museum, and she fell in love with that first and it spread to the rest of him afterwards, gradually.”
“That’s original, anyhow.”
“Wants to paint that preserved leg in her picture. Going to dovetail it on to Washington. If he can get the leg out of the Museum she promises to marry him.”
“Well, I’ll put a stop to that. I’ll introduce a bill forfeiting to the Government for ever all the odd legs in the Museum. Kill, you mind what I tell you, and Pandora shall make you her model instead of this military ruin who is sparking her.”
“I’d like to feel certain of that.”
“You may; depend on me. A man with my war record needn’t fear to offer himself to any—what is this fellow? Major, hey?—Well, I’ll risk offending any major in the service.”
“I didn’t know you had any war record.”
“Ain’t I a General?”
“Oh, I know, but you can’t throw a brick in the street without mowing down a couple of Generals—peace men from principle.”
“But I have seen war, my boy! I was in the army, only as a Captain, I admit. But I smelt powder. Kill, I was distinguished for one thing: other officers always lost their men, but I never had a fight that I didn’t bring out one-third more men than I took in.”