"Where's Mr. Waring, sir?"
"Dressin' fo' inspection, captain."
"He is? I just heard in the mess-room that he didn't propose attending,—that he had an engagement to breakfast and was going in town."
"Ye-as, suh, ye-as, suh, General Roosseau, suh, expected de lieutenant in to breakfast, but de moment he hyuhd 'twas review he ohdered me to git everything ready, suh. I's goin' for de bay colt now. Beg pahdon, captain, de lieutenant says is de captain goin' to wear gauntlets or gloves dis mawnin'? He wants to do just as de captain does, suh."
What a merciful interposition of divine Providence it is that the African cannot blush! Captain Cram looked suspiciously at the earnest, unwinking, black face before him. Some memory of old college days flitted through his mind at the moment. "O Kunopes!" ("thou dog-faced one!") he caught himself muttering, but negro diplomacy was too much for him, and the innocence in the face of Ananias would have baffled a man far more suspicious. Cram was a fellow who loved his battery and his profession as few men loved before. He was full of big ideas in one way and little oddities in another. Undoubted ability had been at the bottom of his selection over the head of many a senior to command one of the light batteries when the general dismounting took place in '66. Unusual attractions of person had won him a wife with a fortune only a little later. The fortune had warranted a short leave abroad this very year. (He would not have taken a day over sixty, for fear of losing his light battery.) He had been a stickler for gauntlets on all mounted duty when he went away, and he came home converted to white wash-leather gloves because the British horse-artillery wore no other, "and they, sir, are the nattiest in the world." He could not tolerate an officer whose soul was not aflame with enthusiasm for battery duty, and so was perpetually at war with Waring, who dared to have other aspirations. He delighted in a man who took pride in his dress and equipment, and so rejoiced in Waring, who, more than any subaltern ever attached to "X," was the very glass of soldier fashion and mould of soldier form. He had dropped in at the bachelor mess just in time to hear some gabbling youngster blurt out a bet that Sam Waring would cut review and keep his tryst in town, and he had known him many a time to overpersuade his superiors into excusing him from duty on pretext of social claims, and more than once into pardoning deliberate absence. But he and the post commander had deemed it high time to block all that nonsense in future, and had so informed him, and were nonplussed at Waring's cheery acceptance of the implied rebuke and most airy, graceful, and immediate change of the subject. The whole garrison was chuckling over it by night.
"Why, certainly, colonel," said he, "I have been most derelict of late during the visit of all these charming people from the North; and that reminds me, some of them are going to drive out here to hear the band this afternoon and take a bite at my quarters. I was just on my way to beg Mrs. Braxton and Mrs. Cram to receive for me, when your orderly came. And, colonel, I want your advice about the champagne. Of course I needn't say I hope you both will honor me with your presence." Old Brax loved champagne and salad better than anything his profession afforded, and was disarmed at once. As for Cram, what could he say when the post commander dropped the matter? With all his daring disregard of orders and established customs, with all his consummate sang-froid and what some called impudence and others "cheek," every superior under whom he had ever served had sooner or later become actually fond of Sam Waring,—even stern old Rounds,—"old Double Rounds" the boys called him, one of the martinets of the service, whose first experience with the fellow was as memorable as it was unexpected, and who wound up, after a vehement scoring of some two minutes' duration, during which Waring had stood patiently at attention with an expression of the liveliest sympathy and interest on his handsome face, by asking impressively, "Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?"
To which, with inimitable mixture of suavity and concern, Sam replied, "Nothing whatever, sir. I doubt if anything more could be said. I had no adequate idea of the extent of my misdoing. Have I your permission to sit down, sir, and think it over?"
Rounds actually didn't know what to think, and still less what to say. Had he believed for an instant that the young gentleman was insincere, he would have had him in close arrest in the twinkling of an eye; but Waring's tone and words and manner were those of contrition itself. It was not possible that one of the boys should dare to be guying him, the implacable Rounds, "old Grand Rounds" of the Sixth Corps, old Double Rounds of the horse-artillery of the Peninsula days. Mrs. Rounds had her suspicions when told of the affair, but was silent, for of all the officers stationed in and around the old Southern city Sam Waring was by long odds the most graceful and accomplished dancer and german leader, the best informed on all manner of interesting matters,—social, musical, dramatic, fashionable,—the prime mover in garrison hops and parties, the connecting link between the families of the general and staff officers in town and the linesmen at the surrounding posts, the man whose dictum as to a dinner or luncheon and whose judgment as to a woman's toilet were most quoted and least questioned, the man whose word could almost make or mar an army girl's success; and good old Lady Rounds had two such encumbrances the first winter of their sojourn in the South, and two army girls among so many are subjects of not a little thought and care. If Mr. Waring had not led the second german with Margaret Rounds the mother's heart would have been well-nigh crushed. It was fear of some such catastrophe that kept her silent on the score of Waring's reply to her irate lord, for if Sam did mean to be impertinent, as he unquestionably could be, the colonel she knew would be merciless in his discipline and social amenities would be at instant end. Waring had covered her with maternal triumph and Margaret with bliss unutterable by leading the ante-Lenten german with the elder daughter and making her brief stay a month of infinite joy. The Rounds were ordered on to Texas, and Margaret's brief romance was speedily and properly forgotten in the devotions of a more solid if less fascinating fellow. To do Waring justice, he had paid the girl no more marked attention than he showed to any one else. He would have led the next german with Genevieve had there been another to lead, just as he had led previous affairs with other dames and damsels. It was one of the ninety-nine articles of his social faith that a girl should have a good time her first season, just as it was another that a bride should have a lovely wedding, a belle at least one offer a month, a married woman as much attention at an army ball as could be lavished on a bud. He prided himself on the fact that no woman at the army parties given that winter had remained a wall-flower. Among such a host of officers as was there assembled during the year that followed on the heels of the war it was no difficult matter, to be sure, to find partners for the thirty or forty ladies who honored those occasions with their presence. Of local belles there were none. It was far too soon after the bitter strife to hope for bliss so great as that. There were hardly any but army women to provide for, and even the bulkiest and least attractive of the lot was led out for the dance. Waring would go to any length to see them on the floor but that of being himself the partner. There the line was drawn irrevocably. The best dancer among the men, he simply would not dance except with the best dancers among the women. As to personal appearance and traits, it may be said first that Waring was a man of slender, graceful physique, with singularly well shaped hands and feet and a head and face that were almost too good-looking to be manly. Dark hazel eyes, dark brown hair, eyebrows, lashes, and a very heavy drooping moustache, a straight nose, a soft, sensitive mouth with even white teeth that were, however, rarely visible, a clear-cut chin, and with it all a soft, almost languid Southern intonation, musical, even ultra-refined, and he shrank like a woman from a coarse word or the utterance of an impure thought. He was a man whom many women admired, of whom some were afraid, whom many liked and trusted, for he could not be bribed to say a mean thing about one of their number, though he would sometimes be satirical to her very face. It was among the men that Sam Waring was hated or loved,—loved, laughed over, indulged, even spoiled, perhaps, to any and every extent, by the chosen few who were his chums and intimates, and absolutely hated by a very considerable element that was prominent in the army in those queer old days,—the array of officers who, by reason of birth, antecedents, lack of education or of social opportunities, were wanting in those graces of manner and language to which Waring had been accustomed from earliest boyhood. His people were Southerners, yet, not being slave-owners, had stood firm for the Union, and were exiled from the old home as a natural consequence in a war in which the South held all against who were not for her. Appointed a cadet and sent to the Military Academy in recognition of the loyalty of his immediate relatives, he was not graduated until the war was practically over, and then, gazetted to an infantry regiment, he was stationed for a time among the scenes of his boyhood, ostracized by his former friends and unable to associate with most of the war-worn officers among whom his lot was cast. It was a year of misery, that ended in long and dangerous illness, his final shipment to Washington on sick-leave, and then a winter of keen delight, a social campaign in which he won fame, honors, friends at court, and a transfer to the artillery, and then, joining his new regiment, he plunged with eagerness into the gayeties of city life. The blues were left behind with the cold facings of his former corps, and hope, life, duty, were all blended in hues as roseate as his new straps were red. It wasn't a month before all the best fellows in the batteries swore by Sam Waring and all the others at him, so that where there were five who liked there were at least twenty who didn't, and these made up in quantity what they lacked in quality.
To sum up the situation, Lieutenant Doyle's expression was perhaps the most comprehensive, as giving the views of the great majority: "If I were his K. O. and this crowd the coort, he'd 'a' been kicked out of the service months ago."
And yet, entertaining or expressing so hostile an opinion of the laughing lieutenant, Mr. Doyle did not hesitate to seek his society on many an occasion when he wasn't wanted, and to solace himself at Waring's sideboard at any hour of the day or night, for Waring kept what was known as "open house" to all comers, and the very men who wondered how he could afford it and who predicted his speedy swamping in a mire of debt and disgrace were the very ones who were most frequently to be found loafing about his gallery, smoking his tobacco and swigging his whiskey, a pretty sure sign that the occupant of the quarters, however, was absent. With none of their number had he ever had open quarrel. Remarks made at his expense and reported to him in moments of bibulous confidence he treated with gay disdain, often to the manifest disappointment of his informant. In his presence even the most reckless of their number were conscious of a certain restraint. Waring, as has been said, detested foul language, and had a very quiet but effective way of suppressing it, often without so much as uttering a word. These were the rough days of the army, the very roughest it ever knew, the days that intervened between the incessant strain and tension of the four years' battling and the slow gradual resumption of good order and military discipline. The rude speech and manners of the camp still permeated every garrison. The bulk of the commissioned force was made up of hard fighters, brave soldiers and loyal servants of the nation, to be sure, but as a class they had known no other life or language since the day of their muster-in. Of the line officers stationed in and around this Southern city in the lovely spring-tide of 186-, of a force aggregating twenty companies of infantry and cavalry, there were fifty captains and lieutenants appointed from the volunteers, the ranks, or civil life, to one graduated from West Point. The predominance was in favor of ex-sergeants, corporals, or company clerks,—good men and true when they wore the chevrons, but who, with a few marked and most admirable exceptions, proved to be utterly out of their element when promoted to a higher sphere. The entrance into their midst of Captain Cram with his swell light battery, with officers and men in scarlet plumes and full-dress uniforms, was a revelation to the sombre battalions whose officers had not yet even purchased their epaulettes and had seen no occasion to wear them. But when Cram and his lieutenants came swaggering about the garrison croquet-ground in natty shell jackets, Russian shoulder-knots, riding-breeches, boots, and spurs, there were not lacking those among the sturdy foot who looked upon the whole proceeding with great disfavor. Cram had two "rankers" with him when he came, but one had transferred out in favor of Waring, and now his battery was supplied with the full complement of subalterns,—Doyle, very much out of place, commanding the right section (as a platoon was called in those days), Waring commanding the left, Ferry serving as chief of caissons, and Pierce as battery adjutant and general utility man. Two of the officers were graduates of West Point and not yet three years out of the cadet uniform. Under these circumstances it was injudicious in Cram to sport in person the aiguillettes and thereby set an example to his subalterns which they were not slow to follow. With their gold hat-braids, cords, tassels, and epaulettes, with scarlet plumes and facings, he and his officers were already much more gorgeously bedecked than were their infantry friends. The post commander, old Rounds, had said nothing, because he had had his start in the light artillery and might have lived and died a captain had he not pushed for a volunteer regiment and fought his way up to a division command and a lieutenant-colonelcy of regulars at the close of the war, while his seniors who stuck to their own corps never rose beyond the possibilities of their arm of the service and probably never will. But Braxton, who succeeded as post commander, knew that in European armies and in the old Mexican War days the aiguillette was ordinarily the distinctive badge of general officers or those empowered to give orders in their name. It wasn't the proper thing for a linesman—battery, cavalry, or foot—to wear, said Brax, and he thought Cram was wrong in wearing it, even though some other battery officers did so. But Cram was just back from Britain.