The Colonel's Guest

by W. A. Fraser

The Colonel's Guest

By W. A. Fraser

HARRY DAYTON was a tailor in Old England. In Calcutta he was a gents' outfitter, which was a marked distinction without much difference. That was in the good old days, when the partner in the leading houses of that sort made princely incomes.

Harry Dayton the elder was a good judge of many things besides cloth, and when he awoke to the fact that his two boys, Harry and Jack, had come in for a fair share of the brain which had always been his, he determined to give them a little better "send off," as he called it, than he had had himself.

The ethics of the prize-ring, and a few other kindred subjects to the study of which he had devoted many good years of his life, he found of not much practical use in the fulness of his manhood.

"The boys 'll 'ave a better chance than I 'ad," he said, and "'aving the oof," as he always designated her Majesty's current coin, he proceeded to buy them the best things in the educational line to be had in the open market.

But the whirligig of time has a merry way of proving that sevens are threes just after one has figured the whole sum of life out satisfactorily, and thus upsetting the calculation; and Harry, junr., and Jack—fine, manly-looking fellows they were, too—by the same token, having just failed to hit it off in the few things they went in for, had to come back to the business in which their "old man" had made the jam for his bread and butter,

It was in September that Harry, junr., walked into his father's place of business in Old Court House Street, in Calcutta, to take his place as assistant salesman. It mellowed the old man's heart to see his fine, strapping son, with his pleasant manners, in the old place; in fact, he got very mellow that same evening, and wept tears of gratitude to think that the chip of the old block had developed into a finer piece of furniture than the old block itself.

"I'm going to send you up country, Harry," he said, with the promiscuous letting loose of a few h's; "I'm going to send you up country to look up business; and with the advantage you have had in the way of education, and with the good name the house has got, you ought to come back with a tidy bundle of orders. I want you to go and see Colonel Trendenis, at Mugawani. Your uncle Tony was butler in their family at home. He used to be a good customer, but I am afraid that he has been working the native darzi racket lately, for we haven't written his name in our books for some time; so you ought to sell him a tidy bit of goods. With his recommendation you ought to get an order from every officer in the regiment. You can work a few of the other places on the way up, and I'll write him a letter asking him to favour you with his patronage. That's the line to play them on, Harry. Call it patronage, and then they have to come down handsome if they do anything at all."

The next day Harry the younger started on his tour, but the fate which juggles things about urged him to skip most of the towns on the way, and put it into his head that it would be better to get up to Mugawani at an early date and work back.

Harry the elder would rather cut a suit of clothes—yes, forty suits—than write one letter; so he put off the hour of tribulation from day to day, keeping a mental reckoning of Harry's movements. "He's at Benares now," he would say to himself, and the next day he would figure him out at Allahabad. After a few days he would pass him on to another town—all in his mind. But in the flesh Harry was up at Mugawani, this wise.

When Harry arrived at Mugawani a crazy old gharry took him and his traps to Bynkles Family Hotel. A good appearance is everything, the old man used to tell Harry, so he spent some time over the good appearance, and then started out to look up Colonel Trendenis.

The Colonel was at the mess, and Harry sent in his card when he arrived there.

Now, Harry's fastidiousness reached out even to his cards. His father, with his superior commercial development, had loaded him up with a few thousand cards bearing the prosaic statement that Harry Dayton, Junr., was representing Harry Dayton, Senr., Gents' Outfitter, etc.

"They're all right for the old man," muttered Harry to himself, as he shovelled them into his box, "but I'm hanged if I'm going to travel around with my pocket full of advertisements like that." So he substituted his own small bits of pasteboard, carrying the plain inscription, "Harry Dayton," and it was because of this that the thing happened as it did.

"Sahib sends salaams," said the tall bearer who had taken his card in to the Colonel, when he returned to Harry. At the door of the billiard room the Colonel, cue in hand and hat off, met Harry with a boisterous rush of jovial friendship.

"Glad to see you, my boy," he said, holding out his hand, his broad red face one mass of genial friendship. "It does my eyes good to see you again. Come in and sit down and have a peg. You don't mind if I finish the game with the Captain here—oh, excuse me, Captain Melton, Harry Dayton, son of my old friend Harry Dayton, of whom you have often heard me speak."

"He's a warm old party," thought Harry to himself. "I expect he wants to give me a heavy order without paying anything on his bill."

"What sort of a trip did you have out?" said the Colonel, as he slammed the red down in the middle pocket with a vigorous punch.

"Oh, very pleasant; you knew, then, that I had just come out?" said Harry, in order to get a slight grip on the conversation.

"Gad! I should think so," said the Colonel. "Had your father's letter telling me you were coming, you know."

"Oh, yes, of course," ejaculated Harry, thinking how very spry and punctual the old man had gotten with his pen to have sent the letter off in that way.

"Father told me to look you up."

"Look me up? I should think so! By Jove! Ha, ha! that's rich: look me up—why, bless me! what else would you do, my boy? We're going to keep you with us for two or three weeks. I think Elma has a room tidied up for you that won't be half bad after being cooped up in the cabin on the ship."

"Who in thunder is Elma, I wonder?" whispered Harry to himself. "I'll bet you the old Colonel's going to ask tick for the whole regiment."

"How was the governor looking?" asked the Colonel, as he made a mis-cue and opened up a slit of six inches in the billiard cloth. "A beastly cue!" was the remark this misadventure brought forth; "slippery tip on it—hard as a button. Five rupees an inch, thirty rupees gone. I'll have it cut out of the marker's tollop. You're out, are you, Captain? All right, Harry, my boy, have another peg and we'll go home. Where are your traps? Did you leave them down at the bungalow?"

"No, they're at the hotel," said Harry, quite bewildered by the Colonel's impetuous way of running things.

"By Jove! beastly stupid that. You should have gone straight to the bungalow. Wasn't expecting you yet for a week, or I'd have gone to the train to meet you."

"I'd rather stop at the hotel, Colonel," said Harry, in desperation; but at this the Colonel simply roared with laughter and slapped his thigh in derision.

"Just like your father, Harry, just like your father. Would rather sleep out on a tombstone than put anybody to the trouble of making him up a bed."

Harry remembered that his father had slept out more than one night, but he had always fancied that it was more because the road home was mysterious than owing to any desire not to give trouble.

The end of it was that Harry and his traps were all packed off down to the Colonel's bungalow, Harry in the Colonel's dogcart, and the traps on the old ticca gharry that had brought him to the mess.

"Gad!" said the Colonel, as they drove along; "I've a notion to make Elma believe you're somebody else. She's never seen you, you know. I might introduce you as a planter down from Tirhoot, only, I suppose you don't know anything about indigo, even though you are going into it," and the Colonel chuckled softly to himself.

"Oh, oh!" thought Harry; "so I'm going into indigo, am I? Perhaps the Colonel means to adopt me. I don't know what in the world he's driving at, unless it's unlimited time on the orders. The governor was right, though, about him, for he said he was a queer old duck. If he took a fancy to me I could get anything I wanted out of him; but if it was the other way on, he was quite likely to tell me to go to Santa Barbara."

"I often play Elma practical jokes," explained the Colonel, as he flicked at the big roan's quarters with the long whalebone whip; "and she's always trying to get even," and he chuckled again.

Harry felt flattered. A fair leaven of vanity had been bred in him, and the lift in the social scale which his father had endeavoured to give him through educational methods had developed it until now it was a full-sized loaf of self-appreciation.

When they arrived at the bungalow the servants treated Harry with a deferential respect that pleased him mightily; and the Colonel's daughter, Elma, came forward to meet him with hearty responsiveness when her father introduced him as his great friend, Harry Dayton.

"We expect you two to get acquainted pretty fast," he said, winking atrociously at Elma. "By Jove!" he thought to himself, "I wonder if they'll fall in with the idea Harry's father and I have of this thing, or upset the whole arrangement by falling out among themselves."

"Deuced fine girl," thought Harry, as he observed her straight, jaunty, almost military carriage. "I'll be able to knock out an order for a habit and a couple of tailor-made gowns, for sure. But I guess it'll be unlimited time on the whole blooming lot," he thought despairingly, "after this jolly reception; perhaps the old man'll never get the amount of this bill at all, for I've heard that some of these colonels run frightfully close to their income."

"Elma never saw you before," repeated the Colonel; "but your father always used to put up with me when he was in these parts, so she knew him well."

"Gad!" thought Harry, as he dressed for dinner, "I almost wish I was in this swim. I'm beginning almost to hate to ask the old man for an order, he's so awfully friendly."

"How was Tom?" asked the Colonel, as he looked up from his mulligatawny at Harry.

"You mean Uncle Tom, sir, do you?" asked Harry.

"Yes, yes, we all called him 'uncle,' of course. Ha, ha! the butler, I mean."

"Oh, he was well," answered Harry, joining in the laugh, he hardly knew why.

"Funny old dodger, wasn't he?" continued his host. "Drank more of that choice old port than the governor himself, I always thought, from the look of his nose. Gad! I wish I had some of it here now—the vintage, I mean. I had enough of Tom when I was a youngster at home. When did you arrive in Bombay?" queried the Colonel, as he prodded a prawn in the curry as if he were spearing a pig.

"I didn't come to Bombay, I came to Calcutta," answered Harry.

"How odd! I understood the governor to say you would come to Bombay, and come straight across here from there,"

"No, I had to go to Calcutta first to get some samples, you know," answered Harry.

"Ha, ha! deuced good! 'samples.' Deuced good!" and he looked across at Harry and winked. "Samples to take up to Tirhoot, eh?" and he winked again.

As the Colonel had got away with his third peg by this time, Harry figured it out that the old man was getting a little mixed, and let it drop at that.

After dinner he asked Harry if he would rather have a quiet evening, with a little music, or go down to the mess for a game of billiards. Harry elected to stay, thinking that while the Colonel was in a mellow mood he might get a pretty stiffish order out of him; then, when he looked at Elma, he hated the whole business, all but the habit—she'd look wonderfully fine in a well cut habit, he thought.

Harry observed that his host had on a shocking mess jacket—shocking as far as fit went; it scooted off his fat shoulders behind at an angle of forty-five, very much like the turned-down brim of a slouched hat.

"Must have been made by one of the native darzis," thought Harry.

As they were smoking their cheroots out on the verandah Harry thought he'd start the ball rolling and work up to clothes a bit.

"You'll be needing some new dinner jackets this cold season, sir, I think?"

"What?" gasped the Colonel, swallowing a piece off the end of his cheroot, as he turned his fat figure in the big, long-sleeved chair.

"Pardon me," continued Harry, "but those you have don't seem to fit very well. May I ask who made them? Couldn't have been the guv'nor."

"The guv'nor!" gasped his companion; "I should say not. Do you suppose when he was here I put him at making mess jackets for me? Gad! no, sir; we never even talked clothes. I entertained him like a a prince. But there, there, that's the way with you young fellows. The first, second, and last thing you think of is the cut of a man's coat. The young ass has taken too much of that 'Monopole,'" thought the Colonel, as he sucked at the black Burma cheroot.

"He's a touchy old bounder," thought Harry, "when he's got a peg in. I'll have to wait and tackle him when he's sober."

After they had finished their smoke and gone to the drawing-room they had a little music, and Elma played the Afghan March. Harry, in his strong, fresh young voice, sang one or two of the newest things at home; and then, by special request, sang him his favourite, "The Boys of the Old Brigade." He sang it with so much vim that the Colonel rapidly regained his good humour again.

"He's a fine, manly-looking chap," thought the Colonel. "Looks just like the old man."

"I must try and do a little business with Miss Elma," mused Harry. "I can't afford to lose all my time here. I'll have to go slow, though, I see, if I expect to stand well with the regiment through the Colonel. Perhaps I'd better get her to speak to the old man about his clothes. I've been speaking to your father about his mess jackets," he remarked to Miss Elma a little later. "They're a little off, you know. He ought to go in for some new ones. Of course, if he didn't know father so well, and wasn't so friendly, I shouldn't dare take the liberty. You had better persuade him to let me send his measure down to Calcutta for a dozen good-fitting jackets. Very likely all his clothes are as bad."

Miss Elma regarded him critically for a moment and then burst out laughing.

"You're trying to take a rise out of father, I'm afraid," she said; "but he's awfully touchy about his clothes, and you'll get into no end of a row with him if you get his dander up."

"You'll likely need a new habit yourself," added Harry, passing over her remark. "I'll show you the latest thing they're wearing at home;" and he excused himself and darted into his room, returning a moment later with a piece of dark green ladies' cloth.

"What a useful man you are! that's just the thing I'm after. I shouldn't wonder if you could take my measure and all. You seem so well up in these things."

"Yes, I can take it," answered Harry modestly. "I learned how to measure a lady for a habit from the old man. I'll take your measure and send it right off down to Calcutta. That's a start," he thought, as he turned in a little later.

"Have you had a pleasant evening, dear?" queried the Colonel, as Elma woke him up from his strong, porpoise-like sleep in the big chair.

"Yes, father. Harry is quite entertaining—knows all about clothes and kindred things."

"Gad! yes. He wanted me to order a lot of new dinner jackets. Deuced queer fancy!"

The next morning Harry was horrified at the cut of the Colonel's regimentals; but he resolved to wait until evening before he brought the subject up again.

He spoke to Elma about it, and asked her advice about the best way of getting the Colonel to order some new duds.

"I could send his measure to the guv'nor, you know," he said, "and he would send him on whatever he wanted, and the bill could stand until the guv'nor came this way himself. I hated to put in that clause about the credit," thought Harry, "but I fancy it's about the only way to fetch him, and I think he'll be all right about the oof some day."

"What an odd chap Harry is," said Miss Elma to herself; "he's a little queer on the subject of clothes, I'm beginning to think."

"A very fine fellow, that Dayton," said Spilkins to Delmar, down at the "gym" that evening, as the Colonel rode away with his protégé. He's going to look me up at my quarters to-morrow, to show me some samples of light tweed some tailor fellow in Calcutta gave him. Fancy him putting himself to all that trouble, and only just acquainted. Have a split, and then I'll drop you at the mess."

Harry had another shy at the Colonel that night. They were out on the verandah for the customary cheroot.

"It's getting pretty cool in the evenings now," remarked the Colonel.

"Yes, it's quite cold; you'll need an ulster if you haven't got one, and one could wear a fairly heavy tweed suit now, with the lining out of the back, say. Did the guv'nor send you any samples when he wrote?"

"He's got too much sense!" exclaimed the old gent angrily.

He was getting annoyed over Harry's persistent attention to his wardrobe.

"I fancy he thought they wouldn't be needed as I was coming," remarked Harry, by way of easing the conversation down a bit.

"No, they wouldn't," answered the Colonel drily.

"He's not a bad chap, at all," said the Colonel to Elma, a little later; "and if he wouldn't make such a darzi of himself, I could like him."

Elma, too, found Harry a pleasant enough companion as they took their gallop together in the morning, if it wasn't for that one failing. He was for ever and ever harping on the subject of clothes—clothes good, clothes bad, and darzi native darzi-made clothes," she assured a lady friend who came to see her.

Then the devil of procrastination let go his hold of Harry Dayton, senr., and his letter turned up at Mugawani.

"I say, Elma," called out the Colonel to his daughter, "here's a tailor bounder coming up from Calcutta in a few days, and we ought to get him at Harry and let them fight it out between them. By Jove! it looks as though there was a conspiracy on to make me buy some clothes. I'm hanged if I don't put up a job on the two of them. When he shows up I'll tell Harry that he is a man from the cantonments, and wants to order some clothes from Calcutta. By the way, Harry, what do you get for trying to make me get a new lot of togs—a commission? Ha, ha!" and he laughed loud and long.

"No, sir," answered Harry, wondering where the joke came in; "I get a salary and expect to have an interest in the business."

At this the Colonel laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.

"You're the driest griffin brought out this year," he spluttered between snorts of laughter. "You'd have made your fortune on the stage. Your governor should have put you behind the wings, instead of into the tailoring," and he laughed again at his little joke and slapped Harry on the back with a vigour that made his eyes snap.

Harry was bewildered. He had often heard that the sun touched up some of the old timers and made them a bit eccentric. In fact, he understood that the fifty-five years' service rule had been aimed at this sort of thing.

"By Jove!" he thought, "the Colonel must be getting on towards his pension. He seems to have had enough of this land."

"Gad!" muttered Trendenis to himself, "the youngster is as queer as his pater used to be. Very funny, too, that it should develop so soon; the old man's fancies ran to boxing and building an underground railway on his place. Used to imagine that he could knock the middle-weight champion out. I wonder if he still keeps it up. I'll ask the boy. Does the governor still keep up his boxing, Harry?"

"Not much now, sir. Says it takes him away from his work too much; besides, his customers didn't like it—thought it too rowdy."

"Ah!" said the Colonel, wondering who the dickens the customers were. "I suppose it interfered with the underground railway," and his fat sides shook with suppressed laughter.

"Yes, probably!" blankly answered Harry, wondering if it also hadn't something to do with the discovery of the North Pole.

"He's as mad as a March hare," he mused, "and I wonder how he manages to command the regiment." Then he remembered having heard of Colonel Magog, who was in charge of a division of the Great Government Railway for many moons, though he was quite off his head about some things. "Deuced strange country this, and I'm right in the middle of the hurly-burly. I'm being entertained by a crazy colonel and can't get an order from him, though he's not got a decent coat to his name."

It was next day down at the gymkhana that the Colonel undertook to give Harry a few pointers about billiards.

The Colonel's score stood fifty-four to Harry's ninety, which put Trendenis in a grumpy mood.

"Where do the officers of your regiment get their clothes made, generally, sir?" asked Harry, as he chalked his cue, making the chalk squeak on the tip with a peculiar rasping noise.

"Their grandmothers make their clothes and send them out from home," answered the irate Colonel; that was because Harry's question and the rasping of his chalk had made the old gentleman miss a very easy cannon, and because he was the fifty-four.

That evening Harry made a last futile effort to get Colonel Trendenis to come down seriously to the subject of clothing.

"I think, sir," he said, "that I had better be moving on to-morrow. I am rather afraid that I am allowing pleasure to interfere with business. Father was anxious that I should go on from here after seeing you."

"Naturally, naturally," repeated the Colonel; "I like to see that spirit in our young men; but, at the same time, you must give us a few days more of your company. I am glad that your father is putting you into business instead of the service. It's gone to the dogs now. I am sure you will do well in business. Indigo isn't what it was, but still it's better than the service. Fine principle the youngster's got," mused the old man, continuing the monologue silently to himself.

"He's certainly a little touched," ran through Harry's mind. "He thinks that I'm in indigo now."

The following day, as they were all at tiffin together, there was the grinding of gharry wheels on the rubble road, and soon the bearer brought in a card which he tendered to Colonel Trendenis with a grave salaam.

There was a perceptible rising of the grey bristles about the Colonel's mouth as he turned to Harry and said—

"I wish you would go out and speak to this chap. He's from the cantonment, and I told him that you could put him in the way of getting something up-to-date in the way of clothes. Tell him that I'm not available just now. Don't let him in to bother me, whatever you do. Don't spoil sport," he said to Elma, as she began to remonstrate. "You'll see some fine fun between them. It's the tailor's man from Calcutta, and Harry can have it out with him to his heart's content—deuced queer fad that of his, anyway, this clothes business. His father would have gone round in a gunny sack any time—he didn't care a rap how he looked."

"Begins to look a little like business at last," thought Harry, as he made for the verandah; "very kind of the old duck, I'm sure. Did you wish to see me?" he asked the new comer.

"I wished to see Colonel Trendenis," answered the young man who was standing on the steps.

"Well, the Colonel received your card and asked me to make his excuses, as he's engaged just now. He thought that I might do just as well—in fact, better. He said that he thought you were needing some new clothes, and if so I shall be glad to help you in the matter."

The stranger's face flushed and he looked at Harry with eyes that were very wide open with astonishment.

"I'm very much obliged to Colonel Trendenis, I'm sure, but if I need any clothes, I'm quite able to pay——"

"Ah! certainly—of course!" interrupted Harry; "but you needn't worry about the pay; I'll manage all that to your entire satisfaction," and he smiled cheerfully upon the other, whose face was as the face of a red mask now.

"Did Colonel Trendenis say that he was too busy to see me?" said the stranger, mastering his passion with a mighty effort and speaking with a slow, deliberate drawl.

"Yes," answered Harry; "he said that if I would see about your duds, that was about all you needed, he thought."

"May I ask if Miss Trendenis is here?" asked the stranger.

"Yes," answered Harry. "She was with her father when your card came in; but if you'd care to see her I can tell her that you're here."

"Oh, no!" hastily interrupted the other. "Thank you, no! I fancy that I've given trouble enough this morning," and there was just a touch of finely drawn scorn in his voice, like the faint vibrating of a minor chord on a gently touched violin. It was too finely drawn for Harry's prosaic soul, so he answered with breezy good nature, "No trouble at all, I assure you. Should be delighted to fit you up with some new togs."

"Togs be hanged!" rather rudely remarked the other, as he clambered into the ramshackle old gharry.

Nothing daunted, Harry held up his hand to the gharry wallah to stop, and rushed down to the gharry.

"Where are you stopping?" he inquired.

"Over in the cantonment," answered the the other evasively.

"If I knew just where," said Harry, "I could call and see what you needed in the way of clothes."

But with a sound of smothered profanity within, and sundry wild Hindoo oaths without, as the gharry wallah lashed his skinny tats into a shuffling trot, the gharry rolled away over the dusty road.

"Either half the people up here are crazy," mused Harry, "or else some opposition house is putting up a job on me."

"A nice sort of friend of my father's Colonel Trendenis must be," thought Harry number two, as he puffed savagely at a cheroot. "Wonder if he thought the governor had sent me out here to sponge on him for a new outfit. Wouldn't see me, either, but sent that moonfaced secretary, or whatever else he is, out to offer to buy me some clothes. Seems to be a remarkably nice sort of a country."

"How did you get on with him, Harry?" asked the Colonel when Harry reappeared.

"Well, he has gone, anyway. As soon as I commenced to talk about clothes to him, and offered to get him a new outfit, he clambered into the gharry and with the use of much bad language drove off."

And then the Colonel begged Harry, as he valued the life of one of her Majesty's soldiers, which was always worth £100, at least, laid down in India, to desist, for he was killing him; and it did seem as if apoplexy would be the end of it, for Trendenis was purple in the face with the laughter which could not get away fast enough.

"Everybody is quite mad," thought Harry, as he sat there very solemn; and he mentally resolved to get out of Mugawani on the morrow if he never got another order. But the mirth was stopped by the appearance of the solemn old bearer with another "ticket."

"Captain Featherstone," read the Colonel as he looked at the card.

"By Jove!" ejaculated Harry to himself, "that's the man the guv'nor told me to collect that old bill from. Its over a thousand now, and he hasn't paid a rupee for years. I'll nail him when the Colonel gets through with him."

Harry strolled out and Trendenis had his interview with the visitor.

Shortly after Featherstone left him, the Colonel heard rather loud voices out on the verandah. He heard the Captain say, "What in thunder has it to do with you?"

"Everything," he heard an answering voice that was Harry's. "Everything. The governor told me to collect this bill of you, and I spoke to you now civilly enough about it."

"What's up, gentlemen?" exclaimed the Colonel, as he appeared in the doorway.

"I just handed the Captain here father's bill," pointing to a bill which lay on the floor torn in two, "and he's kicking up no end of a row about it; wants to know if you've turned your place into a tailor shop."

"Whose father? what bill? Who's running a tailor shop?" gasped the Colonel in helpless bewilderment. "Is this a joke, Harry?" For he began to have a suspicion that the eccentricity about clothes had developed into a downright streak of insanity.

"Why, father's bill? 'Harry Dayton, Gents' Outfitter,'" and he produced one of the firm's big cards from his pocket.

"And who are you, then?" asked Trendenis in a hoarse whisper. "Are you the son of this man—this tailor? Aren't you the son of my old friend, Harry Dayton, in Maidenscote, England? He wrote me that his son was coming out. Aren't you he?"

A light began to dawn on Harry; in fact, a light began to dawn on all of them, for they could all see that there was some terrible mix up.

"No, sir, I'm not," said Harry. "Father lives in Calcutta, and wrote to you that I was coming up to solicit orders."

"Where in thunder is the other man, then—the son of my friend? For I got his letter right enough. I've got it!" he exclaimed. "May I be hamstrung for a drivelling idiot! It was the other Harry who arrived this morning, and this is his card," and he fished the small piece of pasteboard from his pocket.

That was the way it was—the combination was simple enough. Calcutta Harry had arrived in conjunction with the English Harry's letter, and the Harry from England had arrived to fit in with the tailor's letter from Calcutta. But the wearing of coarse cloth and rubbing of the ashes of humiliation were the fruits of the aftermath; and the squaring of the fellows at the mess and the gym., and the hunting up of the right Harry—just in time, too, this last, for he was packing up to shake the dust of Mugawani from feet that ached to be away.

"It was terrible," the Colonel said. Sometimes he swore roundly and loudly; sometimes he cursed softly, inventing divers expressive adjectives to embellish the opinion he held of himself. One phrase that he repeated often was, "Not a single order shall he get in the regiment—yea, not in all Mugawani."

Whether Elma and the real Harry hit it off or not is not of this history. I have wondered since about this—some day I'll write and ask.