“Good for the town, though,” said a voice in the dark.
“Everything that’s unpleasant is,” declared the old gentleman.
Merriam’s tipple had been brought. It was bourbon whisky, off the wood. A keg of it was sent to him by a friend in Louisville every Christmas. As Merriam was occasionally away from town for a year or two at a time the kegs accumulated, so he kept one at the club, and when his order was whisky a bottle was always ready for him. Once when these youngsters had thought to practise deceit by substituting a bottle of the usual club rye for his private tipple, he had detected it by the smell before tasting; for there were a good many things that Rodney Merriam knew, and the difference between Pennsylvania rye and Kentucky bourbon was not the least of them.
“The ordnance people move out in a day or two,” continued the voice in the dark, “and a company of infantry will be here to hold things down until the sale is made. Captain Pollock has been assigned to lay off the lines of the new fort.”
Merriam was holding his glass up to the light in his lean brown fingers. The name of the young man he had been introduced to had touched a chord of memory; and he continued to hold his glass before him so that he could see the clear amber of the liquor in the firelight. He was thinking very steadily and very swiftly. The soft voice of Pollock rose in the shadow almost at his elbow.
“If it isn’t lèse-majesté I’d like to say that I’m sorry the department is making the change. The Arsenal grounds are beautiful. I shouldn’t think the people of Mariona would want to change the place at all, even to get a large post. I envy all the fellows who have had stations here in the past.”
“They have been mighty good fellows,” said Rodney Merriam. “I’ve known most of them—all Civil War veterans, and men we have been glad to know here in town. So Major Congrieve will have to move on! He’s a good fellow and we’ll miss him, but he’s near the retiring age.”
“He’ll retire next year,” said the same voice. It was our southern American voice, soft and well modulated, with the Italian a that the South has preserved inviolate.
Merriam had not drained his glass. He continued to speak, without turning his head.
“Those are hard words, young gentlemen,—retiring age. It’s a polite way of saying shelf. I’m on the shelf myself, and it’s dusty.”