"I never could understand why Mr. Billings was made adjutant," remarked the one spinster, her eyes dreamily resting on the lithe form of Mr. Ray. "I don't mean, of course, that he doesn't do very well, but—there were so many others who would have—at least who deserved it so much more."
"Well, you must remember this," responded Mrs. Turner, "there wasn't anybody else when it was given to him, and there was no real reason why the colonel should remove him when he took command. Mr. Stryker was going as aide-de-camp; Mr. Gleason—well, anybody knows he wouldn't do; Mr. Crane and Mr. Wilkins were neither of them fit for it; Mr. Ray wouldn't have it, and Mr. Blake and Mr. Freeman hadn't joined. It was really Billings or nobody, except, of course, the second lieutenants. Dear me! how I wish one of them could have been appointed!" And Mrs. Turner sighed pathetically. The younger officers were her especial henchmen, and each in turn paid his devotion a year or more at the shrine. If any one of them had been put in power, how much easier 'twould have been to get the band every evening! and then the hops wouldn't have to close at midnight either! and Mrs. Turner was devoted to dancing.
"But papa says Mr. Billings is right about not letting the band play after midnight," broke in the young lady, whose years had been spent in many a garrison, and whose papa—the post surgeon—had pronounced views on matters of military and medical discipline. "Papa says the officers have no right to make the band play until late at night unless they pay them extra. They have to be up at reveille, and it's a shame to make them work all day and at night too!"
"The doctor is by no means alone in that idea," began a third speaker in a quiet voice, and both Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Raymond, who had impulsively burst into speech at the same instant, checked their nimble tongues, bridled, sweetly said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Stannard," and inclined attentive ears to a lady who at the moment had stepped from the open door-way to the piazza. It was evident that she was a late arrival, in whose presence the others felt bound to observe the deferential manners which further intimacy would possibly extinguish. "Indeed," she went on, "only this morning at breakfast Colonel Foster was saying that the bandsmen were getting their full share of work, and that Mr. Billings was quite right in the stand he made in the matter."
"Ah, Mrs. Stannard, I don't wonder Mr. Billings is devoted to you!" said Mrs. Raymond. "You are always ready to defend him."
"He was in our troop, you know, and I feel that he belongs to us to a certain extent," said Mrs. Stannard, smiling brightly, and nodding pleasant greetings to the two officers who were passing at the moment, still intent in their earnest talk. The major merely glanced at the piazza and pulled off his cap, as though he wished its fair occupants were beyond saluting distance. Ray bowed with laughing grace, and sung out cheerily,—
"Don't expect the major home just yet, Mrs. Stannard; he's giving me fits, and I'm in for a lecture."
The ladies were silent a moment, until the pair had passed on out of earshoot. Then Mrs. Turner took up the cudgels again.
"And yet, Mrs. Stannard, it wasn't so when Mr. Truscott was adjutant. We could have the band night after night if we wanted to, and surely you won't say that Mr. Truscott wasn't the very paragon of an adjutant."
"No, indeed," was the reply. "We all know how unequalled Mr. Truscott was; but then, were not the conditions very different, Mrs. Turner? For instance, in Arizona the band was not mounted, the men had no stable duty, and it was so hot in the daytime that they really had no duty to perform but to play after dark when it was cool. Now, here they have their horses, they have two parades each day; they practice every morning, and play on the parade every afternoon; that, with morning and evening stable duty, keeps them very busy, and don't you think Mr. Billings is right?"