"Yes," said the colonel dryly, remembering the extra cases of beer which have to be laid in against such emergencies as an official visit from the brigade staff; "yes, I've noticed it. It's very flattering to us, I'm sure."
Kenryck must have been aware of something in the colonel's tone, for he promptly drew upon his reserve supply of tact and said, "Do you mind telling me the story of those horns? It's worth hearing, I know, for Sawin put me up to asking for it."
"It's an old story to 'Bones,'" said the colonel, adding, as Sam passed him, "Break into another case, Sam, and then chuck a couple more sticks into the fire."
"It must be a good one, then, or he never would have let me in for it," remarked Kenryck.
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the colonel, laughing; "the doctor's capable of almost anything inhuman, and he may be paying off an old score, for all you know, by letting you in for a twenty-minute bore. 'Bones,' what's your grudge against Kenryck?"—but the surgeon had joined a group at another table, and so the colonel, getting no reply to his question, went on: "Do you see that little ivory plate fastened to the shield on which the horns are mounted? Well, that bears an inscription something like this:
John Harnden Pender, C.S.N.,
to
Henry Elliott, U.S.N.
Jan'y 29th, 1871.
"And the story is not a long one:
"My father was interested in shipping, and at the breaking out of the war he owned quite a respectable little fleet of vessels. Most of them were employed in coastwise trade, but he had something like three or four square-riggers winging it back and forth between here and England—and sometimes, though rarely, one of his vessels would make a longer voyage, to Bombay, or 'round the Horn to Frisco. Ah, those were the good old days! when the harbor was crowded with shipping, and at least every other ship flew the stars and stripes," and the colonel raised his mug to his lips, as if drinking to the past glories of our merchant marine.
"It must have been a pleasant sight," said Kenryck, in the pause incident to this operation. "I'm a young man, and can't remember that time, but now-days it's sort of pathetic to see the harbor filled with huge steamers under foreign bunting, while here and there along the docks a few wretched little schooners represent our maritime dignity."