“Do you know, Mark,” said he, “somehow or other when I look at that ’tac’ I always think of you.”
“Why’s that?” laughed Mark.
“You look so much like him,” was the answer.
“I shall be glad,” Mark responded, “if I can always make as soldierly an appearance as Lieutenant Allen does.”
“Well, you look just like him,” said Texas. “Your figures are alike and your faces, too, a little.”
After that there was another silence. But it was the silence before the storm; such a silence as you might suppose would occur when a man was about to drop a match in a keg of powder. And then suddenly Mark leaped up with a cry of surprise, of delight, of—what shall I say to describe it?
“By jingo!” he cried, “I’ve got it!”
The rest—stupid idiots!—stared at him in amazement. “Got it!” echoed Texas. “Got what?”
Mark was too busy dancing about with delight to answer. But suddenly he stopped and stared at his friends.
“Do you mean,” he demanded. “Do you fellows mean that you actually haven’t guessed it? What!”