"Oh, some notion of Caleb's, I suppose," Philip replied. "Shoulder--arms!" shouted Caleb. "Order--arms! Three cheers for the uniforms!" Eighteen slouch hats waved in the air, an eighteen-soldier-power roar arose, the fife shrieked three times, the drummer rolled three ruffles. Then One-Arm Ojam, the flag rested against his armless shoulder, waved his gray hat picturesquely, and roared:-- "Three cheers for the giver of the uniforms!" When a second round of cheering ended, a man in the ranks shouted "Speech!" and the word was echoed by several others. Then Philip, while his wife's lips became shapeless in wide-mouthed wonder, removed his hat and said:-- "Fellow-Americans, the uniforms weren't a gift. They're merely a partial payment, on my own account, for what you did for mine and me when I was very young. This is one of the proudest days of my life; for though I took the measure of each of you by guess-work, no man's clothes seem a very bad fit." Then he returned abruptly into the store, followed by his wife, who exclaimed:-- "You splendid, dreadful fellow! You were letting me believe that Caleb did it!" "So he did, my dear. 'Twas your telling me the story of Caleb's pension that set me thinking hard about the old soldiers and what they did, and of how little consideration they get. Besides, I'm always wishing to do something special to please Caleb, and this was the first chance I'd seen in a long time. His fear of One-Arm Ojam being estranged if the Post got into uniform troubled me for a day or two, but I seem to have taken Ojam's measure--in both senses--quite well." Suddenly Grace began to laugh, and continued until she became almost helpless, Philip meanwhile looking as if he wondered what he had said that could have been so amusing. "If your Uncle Jethro could have been here!" she said as soon as she could. "To be horrified at the manner in which a lot of his money has been spent? If I'm not mistaken, 'twill have been the cheapest advertising this establishment ever did, though I hadn't the slightest thought of business while I was planning it." "That isn't what I meant," Grace said. "I was thinking of your uncle's disgust when he learned that one of your reasons for wishing to live in New York was that you might study art. Your studies never went far beyond sketching the human figure, poor boy; but if he were here to-day, and you were to tell him that your art studies, such as they were, had enabled you to guess correctly the proportions of eighteen suits of men's clothes, imagine his astonishment--if you can." Then the laughter was resumed, and Philip assisted at it, until Caleb entered the store and said:-- "We've been comparin' notes,--the boys an' me, an' we've agreed that it beat any surprises we had in the war; for there, we always knowed, the surprises was layin' in wait for us a good deal of the time. How you managed it beats me." "Phil, didn't even Caleb know what was going on?"