"Ask me an' I say no. I know that Knudt down to the ground. He isn't the marryin' kind."
"Soldier of fortune, pyo' an' simple, he is," said Whitney; "always on the go; an' do yo' think he's goin' to pin himself down anywhere? Not he. He's only in this for the fun of the thing, an' it's a heap better fo' the little Cora girl if he stays out."
"I'm with you. He couldn't tie up to one girl, never in his bloomin' life. Between you an' me an' the lamp-post, he's goin' to the bad in more ways than one. 'Wine, women, an' song,' an' consequent mix-ups in his accounts. He's gettin' too crooked to stay quartermaster. Shorty's about decided to put him back in the line. Why, only yesterday he came over to me an' said, 'Say, make me out a afferdavid, will you? I lost my carbine.' I knew blame well he hadn't lost it, so I said right quick, 'That so? How much you get for it?'
"'Why,' he says, 'the man only gave me three-fif—. Say, Stone, you're darn smart! But help a feller out a bit, won't you? I had to have the money.'
"'No,' I said, 'I won't. You get out of here. I'm not goin' to perjure my soul so's you can have any three-fifteen, or three-fifty, or whatever it was.' The big yap! An', you can bet your life, if it had come down to his carbine, he's been doin' some tall monkeyin' with the accounts an' the troop fund. An' yet, with it all, I can't help liking him; there's so many good things about him. If he's your friend once, he's your friend for always—never knew such a man to stick. He's been awfully good to me when there's no call to be, an' helped me in lots of little ways."
"Yes," said Whitney; "an' the things he's seen, an' the places he's been, an' the messes he's been mixed up in—an' he knows how to tell it, too. That takes with the little Cora girl, of co'se. Better fo' her, though, if he'd keep away. I like him all right fo' myself, but he's liable to be crooked anywheres. Little Teddy Ryan's clean strain, but he wouldn't show up to much advantage beside Knudt. Dixon goes out to-mo'w; I s'pose that's what yo're thinkin' of fo' the kid. Who gets the sergeancy? Decided?"
"Yep. Melody's jumped, an' Sullivan gets it, but I don't think Shorty's thought of who'd be corporal. I'll try an' fix it in the mornin'."
Accordingly, next morning Stone nominated the poet to be Corporal Ryan.
"What the——!" said Shorty. "I've no use for a poet, I was thinkin' of Terry—what?"
"Well, only that Terry drinks an' Ryan never does. I don't think his verse-makin' will interfere with his duties; it hasn't hitherto, an' if he doesn't make good, we can try some one else."