And before long Plodder would be sure to make his way into the inner court --the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the store--sacred ordinarily to the knot of old officers who liked to have their quiet game aloof from the crash of pool-pins and the babel of voices in the main room, and there, after more or less beating round the bush, he would inquire as to whether the major had recently heard news of old Captain Cramps, and what was the state of his health; returning then to the billiard-room with wrath and vengeance in his eye, to upbraid his tormentor for sending him off on such a cruel quest. "Well, what did you go for?" would be the extent of his comfort. "I only said Cramps was going to die, and it's my profound conviction he will--some time or other." And Plodder would groan in spirit, "It's all very well for you youngsters, but just you wait till you've served as long as I have, twelve years' consecutive service, by George! and if you don't wish lineal promotion would come in, or the grass was growing green over every man that ever opposed it, you can stop _my_ pay." It got to be a serious matter at last. It was Plod's monomania. We used to swear that Plod spent half his time moaning over the army register, and that his eyes were never fixed upon the benevolent features of his captain but that he was wondering whether apoplexy would not soon give him the longed-for file. Every week or two there would come tidings of deaths, dismissals, resignations, or retirements in some other corps or regiment, and second lieutenant so-or-so would become first lieutenant _vice_ somebody else, and on such occasions poor old Plod would suffer the tortures of the damned. "There's that boy," he would say, "only two years out of that national charity school up there on the Hudson, in leading-strings, by George! when we fellers were fightin' and bleedin' an--" "Hello, Plod! I forgot you fought and bled in the provost-guard. Where was it, old man? Take a nip and tell us about it," some one would interpose, but Plodder would plunge ahead in the wild recitative of his lament, and the floor would be his own. Tuesday evenings always found him at the store. The post-trader's copy of the _Army and Navy Journal_ arrived soon after retreat, and it was one of the unwritten laws of the establishment that old Plod should have first glimpse. There had been a time when he resorted to the quarters of brother-officers and possessed himself of their copy, but his concomitant custom of staying two or three hours and bemoaning his luck had gradually been the means of barring him out, and, never having a copy of his own (for Plodder was thrifty and "near"), he had settled into the usurpation of first rights with "Mr. O'Bottle's" paper, and there at the store he devoured the column of casualties with disappointed eyes, and swallowed grief and toddy in "consecutive" gulps.