"Fol-de-rol!" said the fine-looking and erect Chief
Quartermaster; "you would have us be as vain as we were when we
were Lieutenants?"
"You can afford to be," I answered; for, even with his threescore
years, he had retained the lines of youth, and was, in my
opinion, the finest looking man in the Staff of the Army.
But all my reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in
reforming the Staff. Evidently comfort and not looks was their
motto.
One day, I accidentally caught a side view of myself in a long
mirror (long mirrors had not been very plentiful on the
frontier), and was appalled by the fact that my own lines
corresponded but too well, alas! with those of the Staff. Ah, me!
were the days, then, of Lieutenants forever past and gone? The
days of suppleness and youth, the careless gay days, when there
was no thought for the future, no anxiety about education, when
the day began with a wild dash across country and ended with a
dinner and dance - -were they over, then, for us all?
Major Burbank's battery of light artillery came over and
enlivened the quiet of our post occasionally with their brilliant
red color. At those times, we all went out and stood in the music
pavilion to watch the drill; and when his horses and guns and
caissons thundered down the hill and swept by us at a terrific
gallop, our hearts stood still.
