"But, Mr. Manners, two companies of tin soldiers can't drive away five hundred strong men; and I understand you spoke of my men to-day as such."
"Don't kick a man when he's down, Colonel. I may have said something foolish—any man's liable to make mistakes; but four hundred thousand dollars' worth of property is burning up there, and my watchmen are being stoned and killed. We discharged some bad characters last week, and they're heading the mob now."
"Yes, this does seem to give your discharged men a chance. Now there were two or three given their walking papers to-day," continued the Colonel, with provoking coolness, his lips twitching under his handsome gray mustache.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Colonel, don't rub it in! I'll make it all right with those men. Just think what's happened to the Amity Works all the time you've been keeping me waiting and begging."
"I know what's been happening, Mr. Manners," said the veteran officer, calmly, "and you don't know what wouldn't have happened but for the prompt action of the very regiment you saw fit to ridicule, and the very men you kicked out of their clerkships because they obeyed the order to turn out, as it turned out, to save you and your works. I ordered two companies there twenty minutes ago. The mob scattered at their coming, and not a dollar's worth have you lost. I only kept you here out of danger for a while, and now, if you please, Corporal Wallace of my headquarters party—with whom possibly you're acquainted—will conduct you safely back. Jump into the gentleman's buggy, corporal. Your uniform will pass him through our lines without detention. Good-night, Mr. Manners. Next time we send a summons to the works, it'll probably be for Sergeant Wallace, and I hope to hear of no further objection on your part."
And despite sorrow for Jim and anxiety about his father, Corporal Fred couldn't help feeling, as he drove with his abashed employer swiftly through the dim yet familiar streets, that life had some compensation after all.