"The situation is being handled perfectly. Everybody alert. It's wonderful training for the guards."
"I haven't liked the sound of reports from the city. Has any news come to you lately?"
"Nothing of special importance. Only a little disturbance, or the threat of one, in the vicinity of Senator Corson's residence. His secretary called up. I sent a few boys down there."
"A disturbance?" barked North.
"I didn't quite gather the details. The man ran his words together."
General Totten helped himself to one of his brother-in-law's cigars.
"This sounds serious. Why the infernal blazes don't you wake up?"
"An officer commanding troops mustn't be thrown off his poise by every flurry. What would happen if I didn't keep my head?"
"When was this?"
"Oh, maybe half an hour ago," replied the adjutant-general, with martial indifference to any mere rumblings of popular discontent.
"That's probably the reason why Corson hasn't got along yet. I'm expecting him. I sent for him." North twitched his nose; his eye-glasses dropped off and dangled at the end of their cord. "I have sent explicit orders to Mayor Morrison to tend to that mob that he has been coddling. He's letting 'em get away from him, if what you say is so."