Carter scowled and stopped smoking. He did not know what Walker could do with him; he did not much believe that he legally could do anything; his creditors never had done more than dun him. But High Authority might perhaps be led to do unpleasant things: for instance, in the way of relieving him from his position, if the fact should be forced upon its notice, that so responsible an officer as the chief quartermaster of the Gulf Department was burdened by private indebtedness. At all events it was unpleasant to have a grasping, intriguing, audacious fellow like Walker for a creditor to so large an amount. It would be a fine thing to get out of debt once for all; to astonish his duns (impertinent fellows, some of them) by settling every solitary bill with interest; to be rich once for all, without danger of recurring poverty; to be rich enough to force promotion. Other officials--quartermasters, paymasters, etc.--were going in for cotton on the strength of Government deposits. The influenza had caught the Colonel; indeed it was enough to corrupt any man's honesty to breathe the moral atmosphere of New Orleans at that time; it could taint the honor derived from blue ancestral blood and West Point professional pride. Carter did not, however, give way to his oily Mephistopheles during this interview. Walker's victory was not so sudden as Mrs. Larue's; his temptation was not so well suited as hers to the character of the victim; the love of lucre could not compare as a force with _le divin sens du génésiaque_. It was not until Walker had boldly threatened to bring his claims before the General Commanding, not until the army had well nigh reached the Red River, not until the chance of investment had almost passed, that the Colonel became a speculator. Once resolved, he acted with audacity, according to his temperament. But here, unfortunately for the curious reader, we enter upon cavernous darkness, where it is impossible to trace out a story except by hazardous inference, our only guides being common rumor, a fragment of a letter, a conversation half-overheard, and other circumstances of a like unsatisfactory nature. Before giving my narrative publicity I feel bound to state that the entire series of alleged events may be a fiction of the excited popular imagination, founded on facts which might be explained in accordance with an assumption of Carter's innocence, and official honor.