"Four, fifteen, twenty-two." The team swirled around in an end-run. Then he hurled signals at them, and, in quick succession, with a tangle here and there, it is true, they went through an entire repertory--cross tackle bucks, straight openings, tandems, kangaroos, revolving masses, double and delayed passes, fake kicks. They massed and bucked the air about as if it offered no resistance. It was beautiful to see. "And now, behold!" said the engineer of this fine performance, pausing solemnly. He drew a line in the earth with his heel and placed the ball upon it. The quarterback took his position near the ball and the rest of the team gathered some twenty yards away. "Five, twenty-four, six X!" barked the Maestro. There was a rapid movement among the men, and then they shot out in a long V. On the walk at first, then on the trot, then at full gallop the V swept down toward the line. The quarterback stooped, picked up the ball, and dexterously passed it as the formation thundered down upon him. The ball disappeared, swallowed up within the V, which, passing the line with tremendous impetus, rumbled on like a battering-ram to a glorious touch-down. "The flying wedge," announced the Maestro, in the tone of the knickerbockered flunkey ushering his Grace, the Lord Hunter of the Billion Mark, into the Reception Hall. "Barred out in the States, but, lordy, we're so far way, and it's such a good one, that I thought I'd give it to them anyhow. Well, what do you think of _my_ team-work, eh?" The Lieutenant pondered a moment in silent malevolence. "Yes," he said, "pretty fair for signal-practice. But what about the _real_ thing, eh? Why don't they _get_ at each other? I don't see them _scrimmage_, do you?" A cloud obscured the radiance of the Maestro's visage. "Well," he said, ruefully, "we're in the Philippines. My team can run signals, but you can't expect them to play. And," he added, in sudden consolation, "your Scouts can drill, but they won't fight." The situation had become tense beyond words, and the Maestro gracefully evoluted. "Papa Isio is coming," he said. "I picked up his announcement this morning in the middle of the plaza." "Papa Isio is a common carabao thief," said the Lieutenant. "Besides, our troops have killed him already five distinct times and he doesn't exist. And it's not up to me, anyhow. Go see Hafner." So the Maestro went off to see Hafner. Leopold Joseph Hafner, First Lieutenant of Scouts, U. S. A., Commandant of the Post of Balangilang, was reclining in an easy-chair on his veranda, a bottle of gin under his nose. He greeted his visitor with a blank stare. The Commandant disapproved of pedagogues, and, in fact, of civilians in general. "Hello, Lieut," shouted the Maestro, with an irreverence that would have sent a shudder along the spine of a neutral witness. "Here's a piece of paper for you." The Commandant examined the paper. "Well?" he said, at length, with an indifference calculated to crush.