"I knew another case," he proceeded. "A young fellow was appointed quartermaster at Puget Sound. About a year after he had sent in his first return he was notified by the Quartermaster General that it did not properly account for certain cap letters, value five cents. Indignant at what he considered such small-beer fault-finding, he immediately mailed five cents to Washington, with a statement that it was intended to cover the deficiency. Six months later he received a sharp note from the Quartermaster General, returning him his five cents, informing him that the department was not accustomed to settle accounts in that manner, and directing him to forward the proper papers concerning the missing property under penalty of being reported to the Adjutant General. The last I knew of him he was still corresponding on the subject, and hoping that the rebels would take enough of Washington to burn the quartermaster's department. Now, gentlemen, this is not nonsense. It is business and sense, as any bank cashier will tell you. Red-Tape means order, accuracy, honesty, solvency. A defalcation of five cents is as bad in principle as a defalcation of a million. I tell you these stories to give you an idea of what will be exacted of you some time or other, it may be soon, but certainly at last. I wish you to complete your returns as soon as possible. They ought to have gone in long since. That is all, gentlemen." "I talked to them like a Dutch uncle," said Carter to the captain of the transport, after relating the above interview. "The fact is that in the regular army we generally left the returns to the first sergeants. When I was in command of a company I gave mine the ten dollars monthly for accountability, and hardly ever saw my papers except when I signed them, all made up and ready to forward. But here the first sergeants, confound them! don't know so much as the officers. The officers must do every thing personally, and I must set them the example." So much at present for Carter as chief of a volunteer regiment which it was his duty and pride to transform into a regiment of regulars. Professionally if not personally, as a soldier if not as a man, he had an imperious conscience; and his aristocratic breeding and tolerably hard heart enabled him to obey it in this matter of discipline without hesitation or pity. And now, in the calm leisure of this winter voyage over summer seas, let us go back a little in his history, and see what kind of a life his had been outside of the regulations and devoirs of the army.