"They say you knocked the general. . . ."
Tietjens said:
"Don't you know enough to discount what they say in this town?" He said to himself: "That was all right!" He had spoken with a cool edge on a contemptuous voice.
He said to the sergeant-cook who was panting—another heavy, grey-moustached, very senior N.C.O.:
"The general's going round the cook-houses. . . . You be damn certain there's no dirty cook's clothing in the lockers!" He was fairly sure that otherwise his cook-houses would be all right. He had gone round them himself the morning of the day before yesterday. Or was it yesterday? . . .
It was the day after he had been up all night because the draft had been countermanded. . . . It didn't matter. He said:
"I wouldn't serve out white clothing to the cooks. . . . I bet you've got some hidden away, though it's against orders."
The sergeant looked away into the distance, smiled all-knowingly over his walrus moustache.
"The general likes to see 'em in white," he said, "and he won't know the white clothing has been countermanded."
Tietjens said: