Now Riggs was an anomaly. He had few friends in the regiment. He was a shy, sensitive, retiring sort of fellow--a man who read a great deal, was known to be very well informed, a man who rarely appeared at the social gatherings at the store, never played cards or billiards, was civil and courteous to the younger officers, but a little surly to the seniors. He was disliked by most of the latter, and cordially hated by his own captain. When they sat on courts together, Mr. Riggs invariably carried the day in all discussions that came up. He knew more law than any of them. Indeed, there seemed to be no point on which he had not more information than all but two or three of his seniors, and he rather delighted in drawing them out and exposing their ignorance. On the other hand, in the thousand little ways in which superior officers can inflict humiliation upon their juniors, his own and other captains made him feel his dependent position, and poor Riggs, with all his knowledge, was a very unhappy man. He had not a real friend, certainly not an intimate, in the regiment; in fact, he incurred the hostility of many of the subs at the very start by being transferred from an old regiment to near the top of the list of this one when the consolidation took place in '71--a transfer that drove Mr. Plodder nearly frantic at the time, and laid the solid foundation of his undying hate. Riggs made no attempt to conciliate anybody. He never mentioned his past life or services. No one knew his war history, though it was known that he had served. No one ever heard him refer to what he had seen or experienced. Yet the few caustic comments with which he occasionally silenced Plodder's reminiscences amid an explosion of laughter from the youngsters assured every one that he knew whereof he spoke. He was sad, dreamy in temperament; some said he took opium, all knew he took whiskey, and a great deal of it, though never was he known to do or say an unseemly thing under its influence. His face would flush and his speech sometimes thicken, but for a long time that had been all. He was what was called a steady drinker, and as an excuse, his wife (and she was a devoted little woman) was wont to tell the ladies of the regiment who ventured to allude to it that Mr. Riggs had a pulmonary difficulty, a bad cough, and that his physicians had prescribed whiskey.