Hot words sprang to Shorty's lips, but he remembered the General's injunction about the character and dignity of the staff, and restrained himself to merely saying: "Col. Billings, some day I won't belong to the staff, and you won't have no shoulder-straps. Then I'll invite you to a little discussion, without no moderator in the chair." "Go on, now. Don't you dare threaten me," shouted Billings. "How'd you get along with Billings?" inquired the Chief Clerk, when Shorty returned. "About as well as the monkey and the parrot did," answered Shorty, and he described the interview, ending with: "I never saw a man who was achin' for a good lickin' like that old bluffer. And he'll git it jest as soon as he's out o' the service, if I have to walk a hundred miles to give it to him." "I'm afraid you'll have to wait a good while," answered Wilson. "He'll stay in the service as long as he can keep a good soft berth like this. He's now bombarding everybody that's got any influence with telegrams to use it to keep him here in the public interest. He claims that on account of his familiarity with things here he is much more valuable to the Government here than he would be in the field." "No doubt o' that," said Shorty. "He ain't worth a groan in the infernal regions at the front. He only takes the place and eats the rations of some man that might be of value." "See here," said Wilson, pointing to a pile of letters and telegrams on his desk. "These are protests against Billings being superseded and sent away. More are coming in all the time. They are worrying the General like everything, for he wants to do the right thing. But I know that they all come from a ring of fellows around here who sell whisky and slop-shop goods to the soldiers, and skin them alive, and are protected by Billings. They're whacking up with him, and they want him to stay. I'm sure of it, but I haven't any proof, and there's no use saying anything to the General unless I've got the proof to back it." "Wonder if I couldn't help git the proof," suggested Shorty, with his sleuth instincts reviving. "Just the man," said the Chief Clerk eagerly, "if you go about it right. You're a stranger here, and scarcely anybody knows that you belong to Headquarters. Get yourself back in the shape you were this morning, and go out and try your luck. It'll just be bully if we can down this old blowhard." Shorty took off his belt and white gloves, unbuttoned his blouse, and lounged down the street to the quarter where the soldiers most congregated to be fleeced by the harpies gathered there as the best place to catch men going to or returning from the front. Shorty soon recognized running evil-looking shops, various kinds of games and drinking dens several men who had infested the camps about Nashville and Murfreesboro until the Provost-Marshal had driven them away. "Billings has gathered all his old friends about him," said he to himself. "I guess I'll find somebody here that I kin use."