"General Sanford, our first C.O., was a soldier, and a good one," she declared finally. "So was Colonel Snodgrass. Lieutenant Colonel Franklin wasn't; but he was too much of a man to do the dir ..."
"Dirty work," dryly. "Exactly. Go on."
"And Stoner, the New York half—ninety five percent, really—of Stoner and Black, Inc., is a Big Time Operator. So we get this damned nincompoop of a major, who doesn't know a f-u-s-e from a f-u-z-e, direct from a Wall Street desk."
"So what?" One must have heard Ralph Kinnison say those two words to realize how much meaning they can be made to carry.
"So what!" the girl blazed, wringing her hands. "Ever since you have been over here I have been expecting you to blow up—to smash something—in spite of the dozens of times you have told me 'a fighter can not slug effectively, Celeste, until he gets both feet firmly planted.' When—when—are you going to get your feet planted?"
"Never, I'm afraid," he said glumly, and she stared. "So I'll have to start slugging with at least one foot in the air."
That startled her. "Explain, please?"
"I wanted proof. Stuff that I could take to the District—that I could use to tack some hides out flat on a barn door with. Do I get it? I do not. Not a shred. Neither can you. What chance do you think there is of ever getting any real proof?"
"Very little," Celeste admitted. "But you can at least smash Pettler, Wilson, and that crowd. How I hate those slimy snakes! I wish that you could smash Tom Keller, the poisonous moron!"
"Not so much moron—although he acts like one at times—as an ignorant puppet with a head swelled three sizes too big for his hat. But you can quit yapping about slugging—fireworks are due to start at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, when Drake is going to reject tonight's run of shell."