China clicked pleasantly on china as teacup bottom touched teacup brim, this sound being succeeded instantly by a series of soft sipping sounds. Sitting thus, his eyes beaming softly over the bulge of his upturned cup and his lips drawing in the last lingering drops of sirupy sweetness, the sergeant became aware of a man clumping noisily along the sidewalk--an old man in a collarless hickory shirt, with a mouse-grey coat dangling over one arm and mouse-grey trousers upheld by home-made braces. He was a tail, sparse, sinewy old man, slightly withered, yet erect, of a build to remind one of a blasted pine; his brow was very stormy and he talked to himself as he walked. His voice but not his words came to the sergeant in a rolling, thundery mutter. “Hey, pardner!” called Sergeant Bagby, holding his emptied cup breast-high. “Goin' some-wheres or jest travellin' round?” The passer-by halted and regarded him gloomily over the low palings of the Reverend Doctor Grundy's fence. “Well,” he made slow answer, “I don't know ez it's anybody's business; but, since you ast me, I ain't headin' fur no place in particular--I'm tryin' to walk a mad off.” “Come right on in here then,” advised the sergeant, “we've got the cure fur that complaint.” He glanced sideways toward his companion. “Bloomfield, this here love feast looks mighty like she might grow a little. Do you reckin you've got another one of them teacups over at your place, right where you could put your hands on it easy?” “That's a chore which won't be no trouble whatsoever,” agreed Mr. Bloomfield; and he made as if to go on the errand, but stopped at the porch edge just inside the vines as the lone pedestrian, having opened the gate, came slowly toward them. The newcomer put his feet down hard on the bricks; slashes of angry colour like red flares burned under the skin over his high and narrow cheekbones. “Gabe Ezell--Cherokee Rifles,” he said abruptly as he mounted the steps; “that's my name and my command.” “I'm Sergeant Bagby, of King's Hell Hounds, and monstrous glad to make your acquaintance,” vouchsafed, for his part, the sergeant. “This gentleman here is my friend, Major Bloomfield. Take a cheer and set down, pardner, and rest your face and hands a spell. You look like you might be a little bit put out about something?” The stranger uttered a grunt that might mean anything at all or nothing at all. He lowered himself into a chair and tugged at the collarless band of his shirt as though it choked him. The sergeant, pleasingly warmed to the core of his being, was not to be daunted. He put another question: