Feller received the word with his clucking "La, la, la!" and hummed a tune while the connection was being made. He had not spoken with Lanny since his own promotion to a colonelcy and Partow's death.
"My ear-drums split for joy at hearing your voice again!" Feller cried. "A regiment of guns for yours truly! You've made me the happiest man in the world. And haven't I smacked the Grays in the tummy, not to mention in the nose and on the shins! Well, I should say so! La, la, la!"
"You certainly have, you bully old boy!" said Lanstron. "Miss Galland sends her congratulations and regards."
"Eh, what? Her regards to me! The telephone still continues to work? Our own original trunk-tunnel private line? Eh? Tell me; tell me, quick!"
"Yes, she has performed the greatest service of the war—better than you could have done it, Gustave!"
"Whee-ee! Why not? Of course! I'm not surprised. She's the greatest woman in the world, I tell you, and I know! And she sends her regards to her old gardener? Think of that! If trouble never comes singly, why shouldn't joys come in a pour? Oh, it she could see me now, so cosey up here among the birds, chucking shells about as cheerily as if I were tossing roses to the ladies in a ballroom!"
"She wants you to have every chance," said Lanstron.
"She asks that for me!"
The peculiar intimate fervor of the exclamation sprang from a Feller in an officer's uniform who could now move in Marta's world. Lanstron hurried on to explain the nature of the next attack.
"If we repulse them we are going to throw in a ram of our own," he said. "We're going to take the aggressive for the moment. It is the only sure policy for successful defence."