“All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home.... Dismissed!”
He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution of the offender.
“That goddam skunk Eisenstein,” said someone.
The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. “Oh, sergeant,” he said familiarly; “I think the others have got the right stuff in them.”
The company went into the barracks and waited.
The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters, and was overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of the floor, letting out occasional little puffs of smoke from a crack in the stove pipe. The sergeant-major was a small man with a fresh boyish face and a drawling voice who lolled behind a large typewriter reading a magazine that lay on his lap.
Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in his hand beside the sergeant-major's chair.
“Well what do you want?” asked the sergeant-major gruffly.
“A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man with optical experience;” Fuselli's voice was velvety.
“Well?”