"That man gif me der stomach pain efry day," wailed Schmoll to Sergeant Casey. "I tell him, 'Lieutenant, dose horse-shoes is expendable. We don't acgount for efry shoe like they was men's shoes, und oder dings dot is issued.' 'I prefer to dake them oop!' says Baby Bismarck. Und he smile mit his two beaver teeth." "Baby Bismarck!" cried, joyfully, the rosy-faced Casey. "Yo-hanny, take a drink." "Und so," continued the outraged Schmoll, "he haf a Board of Soorvey on dree pound horse-shoes, und I haf der stomach pain." It was buckles the next month. The allowance exceeded the expenditure, Augustus's arithmetic came out wrong, and another board sat on buckles. "Yo-hanny, you're lookin' jaded under Colonel Safetypin," said Casey. "Have something." "Safetypin is my treat," said Schmoll; "und very apt." But Augustus found leisure to pervade the post with his modernity. He set himself military problems, and solved them; he wrote an essay on "The Contact Squadron"; he corrected Bainbridge for saying "throw back" instead of "refuse the left flank"; he had reading-room ideas, canteen ideas, ideas for the Indians and the Agency, and recruit-drill ideas, which he presented to Sergeant Casey. Casey gave him, in exchange, the name of Napoleon Shave-Tail; and had his whiskey again paid for by the sympathetic Schmoll. "But bless his educated heart," said Casey, "he didn't learn me nothing that'll soil my innercence!" Thus did the sunny-humored Sergeant take it, but not thus the mess. Had Augustus seen himself as they saw him, could he have heard Mrs. Starr-- But he did not; the youth was impervious, and to remove his complacency would require (so Mrs. Starr said) an operation, probably fatal. The commanding officer held always aloof from gibing, yet often when Augustus passed him his gray eye would dwell upon the Lieutenant's back and his voiceless laugh would possess him. That is the picture I retain of these days--the unending golden sun, the wide, gentle-colored plain, the splendid mountains, the Indians ambling through the flat clear distance; and here, close along the parade-ground, eye-glassed Augustus, neatly hastening, with the Captain on his porch, asleep you might suppose. One early morning the agent, with two Indian chiefs, waited on the commanding officer, and after their departure his wife found him breakfasting in solitary mirth. "Without me," she chided, sitting down. "And I know you've had some good news." "The best, my love. Providence has been tempted at last. The wholesome irony of life is about to function." "Frank, don't tease so! And where are you rushing now before the cakes?" "To set our Augustus a little military problem, dearest. Plain living for to-day, and high thinking be jolly well--" "Frank, you're going to swear, and I _must_ know!" But Frank had sworn and hurried out to the right to the Adjutant's office, while his Catherine flew to the left to the fence. "Ella!" she cried. "Oh, Ella!"