"Colonel, when will you outgrow your fondness for practical jokes?" "Not while I live, I hope. Besides, where's the harm? Amperthwaite, the instructor of that section, will be cleverer for the remainder of the day, after such an interruption, and the boys will be glad of a moment's truce. I wish I could be there to see and listen." The door was open, and Jermyn was standing in front of a large blackboard covered with marks which reminded Trixy of the geometrical puzzles which her father sometimes cut from cardboard for her. The instructors and the other officers were looking at the board, and Jermyn was talking, so no one noticed the little girl in the doorway, and Trixy was beginning to feel embarrassed. Suddenly an officer, who had children of his own, attracted attention by coughing violently. Every one looked at him, and he, in turn, looked toward the door. "Are you the teacher of this school?" asked Trixy of the one officer who sat apart from the others. "Eh? Oh--yes, what is it?" "Lieutenant Jermyn, one of your scholars?" "Er--Mr. Jermyn, do you resent the implication?" "Not for an instant, Captain." "Well, little girl, what is it?" "Oh, only if you'd let him out, there's a couple of ladies who'd like to see him very much; I know they would, because one of them said so." The only really young lieutenant in the room giggled; the others smiled, and the instructor, after regarding the blackboard intently a moment, said: "Mr. Jermyn, you may consider yourself excused, if you so desire." Jermyn emerged with his cap in his hand and more than his customary color in his face. Trixy took his hand, and led him toward the exit nearest the hotel. Looking towards the club, she saw the two officers whom she had met, they having moved their chairs nearer the door that they might observe the proceedings, so she shouted: "I got him!" Then each warrior chuckled, although Trixy did not know it, for she was busily explaining to Jermyn why she had come for him, and how hard she had first tried to find the Admiral, and Jermyn told her not to feel the least concern about the interruption, although at the same time he told himself in entire earnest that he wished that Tryphosa Wardlow had never married and become the mother of a child like Trixy, for when would he ever hear the end of the section-room episode? But Trixy knew nothing of the trouble which she had caused. She prattled without ceasing until she had conducted the officer to her aunt and Miss Trewman, to whom she said: "Here he is. Now, ask him your questions."