'That has been the one drawback, Mr. Albumblatt.'
'I thank you for the compliment,' said Augustus, bending solemnly from his hips; and Mrs. Starr looked at him and then at Mrs. Bainbridge.
'We're not over-gay, I fear,' the Captain continued; 'but the flat's full of antelope, and there's good shooting up both canyons.'
'Have you followed the recent target experiments at Metz?' inquired the traveller. 'I refer to the flattened trajectory and the obus controversy.'
'We have not heard the reports,' answered the commandant, with becoming gravity. 'But we own a mountain howitzer.'
'The modernity of German ordnance—' began Augustus.
'Do you dance, Mr. Albumblatt?' asked Mrs. Starr.
'For we'll have a hop and all be your partners,' Mrs. Bainbridge exclaimed.
'I will be pleased to accommodate you, ladies.'
'It's anything for variety's sake with us, you see,' said Mrs. Starr, smoothly smiling; and once again Augustus bent blandly from his hips.
But the commanding officer wished leniency. 'You see us all,' he hastened to say. 'Commissioned officers and dancing-men. Pretty shabby—'
'Oh, Captain!' said a lady.
'And pretty old.'
'Captain!' said another lady.
'But alive and kicking. Captain Starr, Mr. Bainbridge, the Doctor and me. We are seven.'
Augustus looked accurately about him. 'Do I understand seven, Captain?'
'We are seven,' the senior officer repeated.
Again Mr. Albumblatt counted heads. 'I imagine you include the ladies, Captain? Ha! ha!'
'Seven commissioned males, sir. Our Major is on sick-leave, and two of our Lieutenants are related to the President's wife. She can't bear them to be exposed. None of us in the church-yard lie—but we are seven.'
'Ha! ha, Captain! That's an elegant double entendre on Wordsworth's poem and the War Department. Only, if I may correct your addition—ha! ha!—our total, including myself, is eight.' And Augustus grew as hilarious as a wooden nutmeg.
The commanding officer rolled an intimate eye at his wife.
The lady was sitting big with rage, but her words were cordial still: 'Indeed, Mr. Albumblatt, the way officers who have influence in Washington shirk duty here and get details East is something I can't laugh about. At one time the Captain was his own adjutant and quartermaster. There are more officers at this table to-night than I've seen in three years. So we are doubly glad to welcome you at Fort Brown.'
'I am fortunate to be on duty where my services are so required, though I could object to calling it Fort Brown.' And Augustus exhaled a new smile.
'Prefer Smith?' said Captain Starr.
'You misunderstand me. When we say Fort Brown. Fort Russell, Fort Et Cetera, we are inexact. They are not fortified.'
