Even as he was exchanging a word with the brigadier, Armstrong heard the exclamation: “By Jove—they’ve caught another!” for with a grim smile of gratification the camp commander had read and turned over to his adjutant-general a brief dispatch just handed him by a mounted orderly who had galloped part.
“One of your irreproachables, Armstrong,” said one of the staff, with something half-sneer, half-taunt as he too read and then passed the paper to the judge-advocate of the division.
Armstrong turned with his usual deliberation. There was ever about him a quiet dignity of manner that was the delight of his friends and despair of his foes.
“What is his name?” he calmly asked.
“One of those society swells of whom you have so many,” was the reply.
“That does not give his name—nor identify him as one of my men,” said Armstrong coolly.
“Oh, well, I didn’t say he belonged to your command,” was the staff officer’s response, “but one of the kid-glove crowd that’s got into the ranks.”
“If you mean the recruits in the —teenth Infantry, I should be slow to suspect them of any crime,” said Armstrong, with something almost like a drawl, so slow and deliberate was his manner, and now the steel-gray eyes and the fair, clear-cut face were turned straight upon the snapping eyes and dark features of the other. There was no love lost there. One could tell without so much as seeing.
“You’re off, then! That commissary-sergeant caught one of ’em in the act—he got wind of it and skipped, and to-day came back in handcuffs.”
“All of which may be as you say,” answered Armstrong, “and still not warrant your reference to him as one of my irreproachables.”