"That's just it," returned the corporal. "He's just the kind of soldier to please little boys like you, and he'd look perfectly splendid in a white and gold parlor like your mamma's, but in camp he's a terror. Keeps his boots shined up like a looking-glass; wears his Sunday uniform all the time; in fact, he has seven Sunday uniforms—one for each day of the week; and altogether he makes the rest of us feel so mean and cheap that we can't like him. He offered a prize once to the soldier who'd like him the best, and who do you think won it?"
"I don't know," said Jimmieboy. "Who?"
"He won it himself," retorted the corporal. "Nobody else tried. But you'd better go over to the colonel's quarters right away, Jimmieboy. You know he wants you."
"He hasn't sent for me, has he?" asked the boy.
"Of course he has. That's what the major came to tell you," answered the corporal.
"But he didn't say so," returned Jimmieboy.
"No, he never does what he is sent to do," explained the corporal. "That's how we know. If he had told you the colonel wanted you, we'd all know the colonel didn't want you. He's a queer bird, that major. He's so anxious to read his poem to somebody that he always forgets his orders, and when he does half remember what he is sent to do, we can tell what the orders are by what he doesn't say."
"I shouldn't think he'd be a good man to look after the luggage if he forgets everything that way," said Jimmieboy.
"That's just where he's great," returned the corporal. "For, don't you see, every man in the regiment wants to carry about three times as much luggage as he ought to, and the major makes it all right by forgetting two-thirds of it. Oh, there's no denying that he's one of the greatest luggage men there ever was; but you run along now, or the colonel may lose his temper, and that always delays things."
"I'm not afraid of the colonel," said Jimmieboy, bravely.