The lightning of his eye withered the blunderer before him.
Then, suddenly, with masterful grip, the soldier seized the red-eyed powder-puff of temper exploding within him, tossed it deep into the trenches of his soul, and set his foot upon it.
“What! Are you the young rascal who potted me?”
Above his bitten, pain-wrung lips, above the storm of blue powder blisters puffing out around his wrists, his neck, the edges of his face, the explosive lightnings of the eye melted--wavered--towards the mellow sunlight of a smile--a humorous smile.
“Well! take a better aim next time. Pshaw! it might not have been your fault at all--boy.... A puff--a puff may have caught the puff--and landed it on me!”
Moved by a sudden impulse, the lieutenant held out the fingers of his less injured right hand to the blanching private--who touched but did not grasp them!
Silence almost confounded reigned among the three guests, now drawn near!
A voice--a voice broke it, that of Colonel Deering:
“Onward, Christian Soldiers!”
he chanted in a low, exultant sing-song. “That Boy--that officer--will go over the top smiling, master of himself, gassed by no blinding smoke-cloud of anger or hate! And his father was always telling me that he had a brute of a temper.”