“Your action in last week’s affair was not like that of a man recently promoted from the ranks--a man who, until a year or so ago, was a mere civilian. The tactics you made use of in extricating your demi-corps from a bad corner were those of a strategist. Other officers are commenting on that.” He paused. Dad looked at him miserably. The past that he had so carefully buried was stirring in its grave. The old disgrace threatened to rise, to rob him of all he had so hardly earned. Where there was gossip and curiosity there was fairly certain to be plenty of amateur investigation. And investigation might readily unearth the truth. There were many men in the Army of the Potomac who had served in Mexico. “Is there any good reason for concealing the fact that you had held a commission before this present war?” went on the general. “It was clear to me the first day I saw you. I knew it by the way you drew your sword. Let me say again that I have no wish to break in upon any man’s privacy. But I wish you to know that others are asking questions. And to tell you that the truth often stops the circulation of such rumors as you might not care to have circulated.” “Rumors?” “One is that you deserted from the army at some earlier time and that--” “Pardon me, general,” interposed Dad stiffly, “but if you can persuade the man who voiced such a lie to face me with it, I shall be your debtor.” “Who can nail army gossip? One man guesses at a thing to-day. To-morrow fifty men are quoting it as a proven fact. “I like you, Dadd. You are a good deal of a man. That is why I have bothered to advise you in this matter. Not officially, but as man to man. If you do not care to speak I have no wish to urge you. That is all.” He turned back to a notebook in which close-scrawled hieroglyphics crammed every page. Dad saluted, turned, and walked away. At the top step of the porch Dad halted, wheeled and, on impulse, returned to the table where Hooker lounged. “I thank you, general,” he said, speaking in a rush, as though fearing to lose hold on his new-made resolve. “It was kind of you to take an interest in me, and I am sorry if I seemed ungracious. I--I served for more than two years in the United States army, in the Mexican War. I was a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry and I was afterward attached to General Taylor’s staff.” Hooker looked up in quick interest. Speaking from an almost phenomenal memory of American war-history, he hastily interjected: “There was no officer on Taylor’s staff--and no commissioned officer in the Mexican War--named James Dadd. I will stake my reputation on that.” “No, sir. ‘Dadd’ is not my name. I--I assumed it when I reëntered the service.” “But why, man, why? Surely you knew that commissioned officers with military experience were at a premium when the Civil War began, and that they were certain of promotion. Look at the men in the army who have had war experience and how they have risen. Dozens of them.”