"Gentlemen," he began, "those of you who have finished your property returns for the last quarter will send them in to the adjutant this afternoon for examination. Those who have not, will proceed to complete them immediately. If you need any instructions, you will apply to Captain Colburne. His papers are correct. Gentlemen, the United States Army Regulations are as important to you as the United States Army Tactics. Ignorance of one will get you into trouble as surely as ignorance of the other. Such parts of the Regulation as refer to the army accountability system are of especial consequence to your pockets. Neglect your returns, and you will get your pay stopped. This is not properly my business. You are responsible for yourselves directly to the War Department. But I wish to set you on the right path. You ought to take a pride, gentlemen, in learning the whole of your profession, even if you are sure that the war will not last three months. If a thing is worth learning at all it should be learned well, if only for the good of a man's own soul. Never do a duty by halves. No man of any self-respect will accept an officer's pay without performing the whole of an officer's duty. And this accountability system is worth study. It is the most admirable system of bookkeeping that ever was devised. John C. Calhoun perfected it when he was Secretary of War and at the top of his intellectual powers. I have no hesitation in saying that a man who can account truthfully and without loss for all the public property in a company, according to this system, is able to master the business of any mercantile house or banking establishment. The system is as minute and inexorable as a balance-sheet. When I was a boy, just out of West Point and in command of a company on the Indian frontier, I took part in a skirmish. I was as vain over my first fight as a kitten over its first mouse. I thought the fame of it must illuminate Washington and dazzle the clerks in the department offices. In my next return I accounted for three missing ball-screws as lost in the engagement of Trapper's Bluff. I supposed the army accountability system would bow to a second-lieutenant who had been under fire. But, gentlemen, it did no such thing. I got a letter from the Chief of Ordnance informing me that I must state circumstantially and on honor _how_ the three ball-screws were lost. I couldn't do it, couldn't make out a satisfactory certificate, and had them taken out of my pay. I, the hero of an engagement, who had personally shot a Pawnee, was charged thirty-nine cents for three ball-screws." Emboldened by the Colonel's smiles of grim humor the audience burst into a laugh.