You will meet the most conflicting accounts of the spot where Leonidas first landed on firm ground after leaving the captain’s boot. The colonel’s orderly, who was standing in front of the colonel’s gate four houses farther up the line, deposed that he “thought he heard a something but didn’t see what made it.” Mrs. Phillips declared she was sitting on her porch two houses down the line, and “it looked just like diving from a spring-board.” These were the only two disinterested witnesses. The afflicted Leonidas claimed that he had gone from the porch clean over the front gate, and Captain Stone said that he didn’t know and didn’t care, but that if the gate story was true, then he had projected one hundred and sixty pounds forty measured feet and felt younger than ever. The version which Jones gave has (to me) always seemed wholly satisfactory. “Don’t y’u go sittin’ up nights over it,” said Jones. “Nobody’ll never prove where he struck. But what [Illustration: “Is Sistah Stone heah?” Leonidas inquired] I seen was the captain come ragin’ out of his gate. He went over to the officers’ club and I knowed it was particular, for y’u could have stood a vase of flowers on his muss-tash without spillin’ a drop. And next comes Leonidas a-flyin’ by me, a-screechin’, ‘The Secretary shall hear of this!’ And I seen the mark on his pants and he tells me. ‘Hard brushin’ will remove it,’ I says to him, and he says, ‘The Secretary shall hear of it!’ And I says, ‘Well, Leonidas, it sure ain’t your upper register that’s damaged.’ ‘The Secretary,’ says he, but I got tired. ‘If you was figuring to be the captain’s brother-in-law,’ I says, ‘you should have bruck it to him gently.’” III. THE VIBRATIONS SPREAD And what did the afflicted Leonidas do now? Sunday’s anthem was dashed from his mind. They waited for him, but he never came back, nor was the melodeon again played by Sister Stone. Leonidas, without waiting to brush off anything, hastened to his own troop commander, told of the insult to American manhood and displayed the grievous traces upon his trousers. When his captain found that he was not demented, he meditated briefly and spoke. “Bateau, this is unfortunate, but it seems to me out of military cognizance.” Leonidas mentioned the Secretary of War for the third or fourth time, and asked permission to complain to the post commander. “Think this over for a day,” said his troop commander, “and I’ll see Captain Stone.” On the next day he resumed, “Captain Stone confirms every statement that you make, except--er--the distance.” “It was ovah the gate,” repeated Leonidas. “But I would feel just the same if it was not.” The troop commander was wise. “Very well. You have my permission to make your complaint.”