“Do you imagine that you may fire into American territory, kill American soldiers, and escape the troops?” The self-commissioned officer blew his firing-whistle. “Señor,” he said, “igscouse. We do no know our fire offend. We will make attack from other quarters.” Swinnerton wasted neither words nor time. He hurried back, and knelt at the side of the wounded orderly. He threw one of the boy’s arms about his own neck and lifted him, his voice running on like a mother’s crooning. “Never mind, Felker; it’s not a bad wound. If I’m a surgeon at all, I’ll mend it. There, is that easy, boy? Then here we go.” A special train had hurried the general and the colonel and staff back from Huachuca. Fredericks, good soldier that he was, had marched to the sound of the guns. From the time he had trotted out at the head of his troop, an absurd suspicion had been troubling Fredericks, and the moment of his return he verified it. He found and examined the envelop in Swinnerton’s room, and he was even ahead of the general in greeting Swinnerton when the latter came staggering under his heavy burden toward the custom-house steps. Despite the gravity of the occasion, the general smiled, the colonel chuckled, and Fredericks laughed aloud. Swinnerton’s hair was rumpled like the ruffled crest of a cockatoo. Dust had blackened the caking streaks on his face, which was red from exertion. He was wheezing and puffing like a donkey-engine, and at every expiration of breath his cheeks bulged prodigiously. And what is more than mere words of description can ever convey, he was simply Swinnerton, at whom and with whom people smiled. He did not smile this time. He set his burden down and glared murderously at Fredericks. “Well, Fredericks,” he gasped, with no thought of the deference due to the general’s stars, “what is there about this so infernally _funny_?” “This is, Swinney,” said Fredericks, waving the wedding-card. “It isn’t even postmarked Fort Robertson. The last census found twenty-three thousand four hundred and five Mary Smiths. This is just one of the others, my boy.” Swinnerton made a full confession to Fredericks before the week was over. He had received three delayed love-letters and a congratulatory telegram from the President of the United States, though it was significant that every admiring newspaper sensed the humor of a single fat surgeon waddling up to a firing-line and bluffing it into submission. “I reckon,” he smiled a little ruefully, “that it’s written in the books that I’m to be a silly ass of sorts for all my mortal days. But I’m cured of minding it, and I’m a most uncommonly happy one, Freddie.” [Illustration] [Illustration: THE THAMES] AN UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER IN LONDON BY THEODORE DREISER Author of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,” etc. WITH PICTURES BY W. J. GLACKENS