"It's a dark little hole at best, Pris," said Sandy, "and I offered you a good bright room at the Exchange—the very one your paragon used for about the same purpose when he was stationed here." Sandy would tilt at his cousin's fad at times, and this was a time, for Sandy had been crotchety for a week.
"My paragon, as you call him—my ideal of the soldier as we saw him after Porto Rico," answered 'Cilla, with dignity and precision, "held his classes there when the rest of the building was not what it is to-day—a rumshop."
"Not a drop of rum to be had on the premises now, Pris—though there might have been then."
"I don't believe it! My general was an ascetic. No one ever heard of his using liquor—and wine is only liquor in another form."
"Come to the library and I'll show you what your General Ascetic wrote of himself after he was so horribly shot in the Sioux campaign. He said he owed his recovery to a winter in California and drinking plenty of good red wine that made blood."
But Priscilla knew that Sandy "had the papers to prove it," and preferred not to see them, lest her ideals come tumbling. "That might have been necessary and by physician's prescription," said she. "What I condemn is its usage when there is no excuse. I should feel that I was enticing my class into temptation if I led them daily to the Canteen, and most of them feel as I do about it. Blenke, for instance—though you don't believe in him, Sandy—when I told him of your offer, he said he would rather not set foot under that roof."
"When was that?" asked Sandy curiously, seeing a chance for a palpable hit. "He was sent to Leavenworth with the guard of those deserters Wednesday morning, and I didn't have it to offer to you until Tuesday afternoon."
"He came that evening to say he was ordered away with the guard detail. Two of my men have gone. You can see for yourself, Sandy, that for any important duty the total abstainer is chosen."
But Mr. Ray did not answer. He was thinking intently. "Was Blenke one of the two you—spoke of, 'Cilla?" he presently asked.
"No. He came by himself just after they'd gone. He took his leave a very few minutes later. We heard you coming down."