The Colonel was still in his chair gazing into the fire when I left. His pipe was out; his glass untasted; his chin buried in his collar.
“My po’ Fitz!” was all he said as he lifted his hand and pressed my own. “Good-night, Major.”
When I had reached the hall door he roused himself, called me back and said slowly and with the deepest emotion:
“Major, I shall help Fitz through this in the mornin’ if it takes eve’y dollar I’ve got in the world. Stop for me as you go downtown and we will call at his office together.”
II
Fitz had not yet arrived when the Colonel in his eagerness stepped in front of me, and peered through the hole in the glass partition which divided Fitz’s inner and outer offices.
“Come inside, Colonel, and wait—expect him after a while,” was the reply from one of the clerks,—the first arrival.
But the Colonel was too restless to sit down, and too absorbed even to thank the young man for his courtesy or to accept his invitation. He continued pacing up and down the outer office, stopping now and then to note the heap of white ribbons tangled up in a wicker basket—records of the disasters and triumphs of the day before,—or to gaze silently at the large map that hung over the steam-heater, or to study in an aimless way the stock lists skewered to the wall.