So when a regular came to us yesterday, before inspection, and asked for guns to clean, David began to get his gun out of the rack. He looked a little uneasily at Knudsen, but the Swede wouldn't see it; he kept squinting through his own piece. The regular, to make matters sure, said, "Mr. Randall told me you'd give me your gun. I always clean his." With the funniest little set of his jaw, as if he didn't quite know how to do it, David reached for the cleaning rod. "Well," he said, "Mr. Randall is mistaken. I clean my gun myself." Then he sat down beside Knudsen, as if sure that the other would teach him--in which he was right. His dirty hands at the end were a sad sight to him, and yet I think he was proud of them too. This morning Randall, who hasn't learned (and I question if he ever will) how unwelcome he is in our tent, came in to brag a little--and of what! There stands to the south of us a big hotel whose bulk is visible from the camp, a strong temptation to all our luxurious budding Napoleons. Randall was there last night, and came in to tell us what he had to eat. Particularly he enjoyed, he said, the fresh asparagus tips. Pickle's envy overcame his dislike, and he had nothing to say. But David's eye gleamed. "Fresh asparagus tips?" he asked. "Scarcely that." "Indeed?" demanded Randall. "I know asparagus when I eat it." "But not fresh asparagus," countered David. "It's not to be had in September. Canned tips, Randall, that's all." And Pickle, in his relief, cackled aloud. I have of late told you so little of our officers that I must say something about them here, of officers as a class, and ours in particular. We are at the stage of theoretical conferences--after the regimental meeting each night on the drill-field is a company conference at each company tent, where the non-coms are expected to go, and where all others are invited. Consequently the captain or lieutenant has forty men there each night, crowded close around the table and packed at the open side of the tent. We are learning the theory of field skirmish work, with a glance at the method of advancing by road into an enemy's country.