An old soldier who had been with Colonel Morrow had charge of the servants; a soldier cook prepared the meals, and the house work was done by the blond _moujik_, a Russian woman and her daughter. It was a happy place--what the veteran regular calls “old army stuff,” meaning that everybody begins by assuming that the other fellow is a gentleman, knows his business, and attends to it without attempting to look, talk or stand in imitation of von Hindenburg. These latter traits afflict some persons new to the uniform of an officer, because many young men gained commissioned ranks without going through the “shavetail” period of their training. This term comes from the old style of shaving the tail of a mule new to the army, which serves as sort of a warning signal to such as may have dealings with him, that the mule has not acquired proper discipline and a regard for the feelings of others. And no matter how high a cadet may stand in his class at West Point, when he comes to the army, he is a “shavetail officer,” for about a year, and admits that he has a lot to learn about army ways. This is one of the reasons why the old regular officers, and the officer fresh from civil life, have not always gotten on well together in the new army. I do not always side with the regular. The regular army had a splendid opportunity to send back to civil life several thousands of temporary officers with friendly feelings for the regulars, and an appreciation of the professional training of the regular. Instead, in too many cases, the regular officers went out of their ways to point the fact that the new officer was only an amateur at the game of soldiering. The new officers, with a few exceptions, never pretended to be anything else. They wanted to learn, but they resented being humiliated while learning. As it happened, the regular army of England was forced to enjoy a monopoly of the fighting in the early days of the war, with the result that the regular officers were almost entirely wiped out. But one foolish amateur in an American expedition generally resulted in all his fellows being judged by his inefficiency and his foolishness. The regular army would not wish to be judged by its worst types. And I refer to these things here to point the fact that if our regular officers had shown the same spirit toward the strangers that Colonel Styer and the officers of the Twenty-seventh United States Infantry showed to the temporary officers of the Siberian Expedition, the regular army would hold the respectful deference of those men who have quit the officer’s uniform for civilian garb. Before we could cross the Amur to visit the detachment near Khabarovsk, it was necessary for me to have a pass for the big railroad bridge over the river, issued by the headquarters of General Oi. S----, the adjutant, arranged it for me through the Japanese liaison officer.