AT THE OFFICERS' CLUB
"Well, it seems good to see old faces once more," said Algy, turning to
the two new "youngsters," as younger officers are termed.
This was during a lull following a general conversation in which Hal and
Noll had modestly refrained from taking any unnecessary part. "How did
you leave every one in the old Thirty-fourth?"
"All the officers were well," Hal answered. "We lost several of our men
who went down before Moro bullets, and disease got a few also."
"Then you've seen real service?" asked Algy Ferrers enviously.
"Yes; as much as the Moros could give us," nodded Noll. "Truth to tell,
it was hard enough fighting to suit amateurs like us."
"Jove, I'd give a month's pay even to be able to fire a sentry's gun,"
declared Algy wistfully. "Ever since I left the Thirty-fourth I've been
plugging away at the Service School at Fort Leavenworth."
"We didn't see you there in July," said Hal.
"No; in June I was ordered to this regiment."
"We had no notion of ever meeting you down here," replied Noll, now
noting the figures, "37," just over the crossed rifles of Algy's collar
device.
"I don't belong to this battalion," Ferrers explained. "I'm here
temporarily, only, on special duty. I belong with B company, first
battalion. I'm just praying for this regiment to be ordered somewhere
where I can see some of the real fighting work."
"You will see fighting enough one of these days," said Hal
prophetically.
"Cut that, Ferrers!" warned Sears. "Most of us are quite content with
ordinary garrison routine in 'God's country.'"
"That's all well enough for you fellows," muttered Algy. "You don't need
any of what I'm longing for. And I might have gone to the Philippines,
too, with the Thirty-fourth, if I hadn't been such a dub," added
Ferrers, glancing at Hal and Noll. "Perhaps I'm putting on airs,
though. Overton, when I was at Fort Clowdry, I don't believe I was quite
as high as a dub, was I?"
Algy spoke so plaintively that all the officers at table laughed.
"Oh, that's all right for you fellows," retorted Algy. "But you never
had a glimpse of me in those old, first days. Why, fellows, I used to go
off the post without permission. I got into an all-night party in
Clowdry, and preferred it to reporting back in season to go on for guard
duty."
A somewhat incredulous laugh from trained officers greeted this
assertion.
"Oh, that's straight," declared Algy remorsefully. "And when Colonel
North tried to do the fatherly act with me by way of remonstrance, I
believe I assured him that my little lapse was nothing to get warm
about."
A shout of genuine laughter greeted this reminiscence.
"And one day," pursued Algy, "when Colonel North undertook to be really
a trifle severe with me, I flared up and offered my resignation on the
spot. I told him that, if an officer couldn't leave post for a little
fun, without the hanged formality of reporting and securing permission,
then the Army was no place for a gentleman."
"Did Colonel North let you get away with that?" demanded Lieutenant
Johnson.
"He did," confessed Algy, "for in his good old soldierly heart he knew
that I hadn't arrived at the dignity even of being a dub. Then I wired
my father and asked him to see the President and get my resignation
through at once. Instead, my father wired that he'd had me ordered to
the Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth; that I'd have to go there, work
like blazes and make good, or else that he'd disown me and make me work
for a living. I thought the Service Schools would be easier than working
for a living," added Algy reminiscently, "but from what I went through
at Leavenworth I'd advise any lazy man to go to work instead."
"It's tough at Leavenworth," assented Brisbane. "I put in a year there
once."
"I'm glad, now, that I went to Leavenworth," Algy continued. "I was
taught there that a soldier's life is about the finest going, if only a
fellow can buckle down to work and discipline, and forget that he has
any preferences of his own for anything."
"Leavenworth certainly made a good soldier of you, Ferrers," put in
Sears. "I don't know a harder-working officer than you are to-day."
"Thank you," came from Algy. "But that seems hard for you to believe,
doesn't it, Overton?"
"From the past, Ferrers, yes; but not from what I see of you now, or
from what I heard you saying as you came into the club."
"Why, Ferrers is called one of the worst grinds in the service," laughed
Lieutenant Hapgood. "Overton, I know it to be a fact that Algy Ferrers,
for the last year, has been returning all the remittances that his
father sent him. Algy simply wrote back that, by the time he had his
day's work done, he was too tired to go out and spend money."
"Well, why not?" challenged Algy. "A second lieutenant is paid seventeen
hundred dollars a year. To my way of thinking that's all an honest,
hard-working young fellow ought to be allowed to have."
"You can't keep many automobiles on that," smiled Noll.
"I don't have to," retorted Algy. "I haven't been in an auto, except
under orders, since I left Clowdry for Leavenworth."
A wonderful change had come about in the case of Algy Ferrers. Hal and
Noll felt like pinching themselves to see if they would wake up.
"Every younger officer, nowadays, has to put in two or three spells of
study at the Service Schools," continued Algy, turning to the two
newest members of the club. "It does 'em a lot of good, too. You'll run
up against it one of these days, without a doubt. If you've any angles
the Service School will rub 'em off. They try to be kind to you at
Leavenworth, Terry. One of their plans, there, is to give you time for
eight hours' sleep, but you can't always connect. All the rest of the
time is working day. Why, I've gone to my quarters at Leavenworth so
tired out at night that I've sat down in a chair for a moment, to try to
rest a bit before undressing. Then my eyes would close, and the next
thing I'd know it would be daylight--and I'd slept all night in my chair
with my clothes on. That's no fanciful picture either." Algy finished
plaintively. "A married man is in huge luck at Leavenworth, if he has a
good wife."
"Why?" Noll wanted to know.
"Because the poor student officer can usually depend upon his wife to
wake him in time to shave before the next day's grind begins. You will
know all about it when your turn comes to be detailed at Leavenworth."
By this time the meal was over. Some of the officers had begun to smoke,
those who did not use tobacco, lingered over their coffee.
Lieutenant Pratt drew a pasteboard box from an inside pocket, took from
it a cigarette, lighted it and lay the box beside his plate.
"You might be good," put in Hapgood, "and pass me a cigarette."
"Had I known that you wanted one, Hapgood, you'd have had this one,"
explained Lieutenant Pratt apologetically. "It was the last one in the
box."
"I don't see that I smoke, then, as there's no waiter in the room,"
sighed Hapgood, with an air of comic discontent.
"Try Ferrers," advised Hal. "He never moves anywhere with less than a
hundred cigarettes about him."
"I?" demanded Algy, wheeling, a flush mounting to his cheeks and
temples. "Not guilty, I'm glad to say."
"Why, you used----" began Hal.
"All bygones," declared Algy. "I know I used to walk around looking like
an empty house on fire, but Leavenworth changed that, too. The second
day I was there I lighted a coffin-nail before one of the older
officers. Wish you could have seen him go for me! It was all smooth as
velvet, and eloquent of courtesy, but that old officer said----"
Algy halted suddenly in his speech.
"_What?_" chorused half a dozen others.
"I'm not going to tell you," Ferrers made answer. "There are too many
smokers here, and I don't intend to make any enemies out of good
fellows."
"Tell us, do," coaxed Pratt. "We don't hold you responsible, Ferrers.
We'll charge the jolt up to the old officer you mentioned."
"Well, then," resumed Algy, "he asked me what I meant by making a foul
chimney of my nose and stewing my brain all day long in a mess of
nicotine. He further asked me why I didn't give it up."
"What did you say to him?"
"Why," confessed Algy honestly, "I told him that it had never occurred
to me before that a cigarette smoker is violating the nuisance act all
day long, and that an Army officer could be in better business than
breaking the minor laws."
"Thank you," said Pratt dryly, rising and walking over to a fire place,
into which he threw his lighted cigarette. A general laugh greeted the
act.
"You two used to be clean young fellows, with no cigarettes in your
pockets," continued Ferrers, turning to Hal and Noll.
"We don't smoke yet," answered Terry.
Brisbane, the ranking officer present, arose, and the others followed.
"Now, Overton, it's ten minutes to two," explained Lieutenant Sears,
glancing at his watch. "If you want to go over to Captain Foster's
quarters, and be presented to him, I'm at your service."
"Thank you; I'm ready."
At the same time Lieutenant Johnson made the same offer to Noll. The
four officers left the club together, all returning the salutes of a
sentry who stood at present arms.
"What's all that nonsense Ferrers gives us about the old days when he
was such a rookie from civil life?" inquired Lieutenant Sears.
"It's all true enough," Hal answered. "Ferrers was a mighty good-hearted
fellow----"
"He is now," interposed Sears.
"But he was really the laughing-stock of all the enlisted men, and the
despair of all the other officers at Fort Clowdry," continued Hal.
"Nothing has pleased me so much, in a long time, as to see him such a
dead-in-earnest, dyed-in-the-wool officer as he is now."
"Ferrers is one of the most capable youngsters in the service," Sears
declared warmly. "Really, you know, it seems incredible that he could
ever have been any other kind of officer."
"If a man like Algy Ferrers can come back, and be what he is to-day,"
Noll declared, "then there's hope for a pair of raw youngsters like
Overton and myself."
"Oh, you two will have no trouble; you've been enlisted men," replied
Johnson. "Men who come up from the ranks, as you two did, have had all
the possible nonsense knocked out of them before they got to their first
examinations. But here's Captain Goodale's house."
"And Captain Foster's is the next beyond," stated Lieutenant Sears.