Part 8

"You needn't spend it all, unless you have to," said Stearns; "and if you have any of it left, when you meet me tomorrow, I shall think all the better of you. See here," he went on, yielding to a sudden whim, and tossing over a bill as he spoke, "suppose you put on a little style, and pay for this lunch of ours!"

Larry's eyes twinkled as he clutched at the bill, and his mouth twisted itself into a grin of alarming proportions, but in an instant he assumed an air of unruffled composure, and beckoning to the waiter he inquired, "Sa-ay, cully, w'at's de taxes on dese 'freshments?"

The astonished waiter, check in hand, for a moment stood glancing back and forth from the captain to the ragged but unabashed urchin. But Larry, waving the bill in his face, demanded, "Have youse b'en drinkin'? I axed youse de damage on de whole layout!"

"Yas, sah," at length said the bewildered colored man, laying the check before the boy, "I heerd yo'!"

"Den _dat's_ all right," said Larry, picking up the check and glancing at it, only to break out with, "_W'at!_ Two dollars an' a quarter? Why, I seen a place, on'y dis mornin', where dey gives youse a square meal--'de bes' in de city,' it said on de sign--fer twenty cents!"

"I think the check is correct," put in Stearns, smiling at the indignant expression on Larry's face and the disgusted look of the waiter. "Pay up--you're not being cheated."

After matters had been adjusted satisfactorily, the captain rose, held out his hand to his guest, and said, "Well, my boy, I must be going. Hope you enjoyed your lunch as well as I did mine. You'll drop in on me tomorrow, eh?"

"Sure!" replied the major, as he hunted for a pocket secure enough for the retaining of his suddenly acquired riches. "T'anks fer de grub, an' I'm 'bliged fer all dis mon'. An' _say_," coaxingly, "youse _must_ have pull enough fer t' get me de place on de drum."

"I'm afraid I can't promise you that," said the captain, stopping as they reached the street, "for the drum-corps is rather outside my command. Well, I turn off here--goodbye, until tomorrow noon, Major."

The next forenoon Captain Tom varied his customary Sunday routine by taking a stroll through a quarter of the city with which he had but slight acquaintance, and casually dropping in at the station house of the precinct wherein Larry claimed former residence. A short chat with the lieutenant behind the rail brought out a number of unedifying facts about the lad's parentage, but Stearns found that his _protégé_ had kept to the truth in telling his story; and so, considerably encouraged, he took a cab and went to meet his appointment at the armory.

Promptly at noon Major Larry reported with an elaborate sweep of the hand evidently meant to represent a military salute, and with a most expectant grin upon his mobile features.

"On time to a minute, that's proper," said Captain Tom, drawing out the sliding book-shelf of his desk, and utilizing it as a resting-place for his long legs. "Sit down, Larry, and we'll have a conference of the powers. How did your 'wealt'' hold out?"

Silently, but with a splendid air of pride, the boy drew a handful of coins from his pocket, came over to the captain's desk, and spread out his capital for inspection. Stearns counted the collection, and found that it aggregated eighty-two cents.

"H'm! so you're a young Napoleon of finance?" he said, as the little fellow put back the money into his pocket. "Well, tell me how you managed it."

"It was dis way," explained Larry, balancing himself on the back of a chair: "t' start wid, I had de ha'f youse gin me; an' den I went into de papey biz, and sol' enough t' make twenty cents more. Now, dat was 'velvet'--dem two dimes was--an' so I went t' pitchin' pennies wid de Pie Alley gang, an' I win t'irty more, makin' an even skimole. Well, I 'stood' on dat, 'cause I wasn't takin' no chances; an' I've got de stack, 'ceptin' t'ree cents I give Reddy Burns fer a shine, and fifteen w'at I blew in on me breakfus'. I slep' wid Reddy las' night, y' know, an' so I paid 'im fer me lodgin' by lettin' 'im black me boots--which wasn't no snap fer 'im, 'cause one o' dem boots is a cloth 'un, an' he kep' shinin' fer an hour 'fore he c'd get it t' glitterin'."

"Where did you get your supper?" inquired Stearns, leaning back in his chair and laughing at Larry's report of his business transactions.

"Oh, I didn't want much supper, 'cause it was so late when you an' me was eatin'," returned the major, jingling his coins in his pocket, "but I matched wid Slinky Smith fer a piece o' pie, down in de alley, an stuck'm. Say, I'll give back dat ha'f, if youse want it--an' how 'bout de drum?"

Well, Larry failed to get the position his soul coveted--at least, at _that_ time--but when, after being in executive session for more than an hour, the Conference of the Powers adjourned, he had been appointed "Company Kid" for "A"; and on the Monday night following he duly was introduced to the men, and was installed formally in office.

From that day until now his popularity steadily has grown greater--"and for good cause." He has an inexhaustible fund of Irish wit, by but one generation removed from The Sod, and sharpened to the keenest edge by the sort of life he has led. He is a tower of strength in his command of modern Arabic, that weird _patois_ which reaches its full power and beauty only in the streets of a great city. He can sing, after a fashion, and his ability to "do a dance act" is unquestioned, for when he executes the steps it is with an air of impressive earnestness and solemnity that never fails to bring down the house. In fact, since his advent, when we in the staff-room hear a yell of delight come echoing down the stairs and along the corridors, we grin sympathetically one to another, and say, "Larry's at it again--the little devil!"

He is clever, too, at all sorts of things over which the volunteer hates to fuss, and many a dime comes his way in return for his skill in polishing buttons and brasses for the lazy men of the company--and "A," with fifty-eight enlisted men upon its rolls, boasts of an aggregate of fifty-seven who always are "in fatigue," the remaining one being the tireless first-sergeant.

Yes, it was a great and ruby-lettered day for "A"--the day when Larry came to it--and in all its long history its quarters never were kept so neat and clean, and its officers and men never were entertained so well as they have been since he began his genial reign. And it was a great day for the regiment when our "seventh major" joined--for Stearns' nickname of "Major" Callahan has been adopted officially--because Larry's fame has gone abroad in the land, and his deeds have added new lustre to the name of the Third.

Larry had been with us a little over a year when his great opportunity came to him. It was on a certain night when "A" had made arrangements for a smoke-talk, up in quarters--for Captain Stearns had met at his club one Lieutenant Hackett, of the regular cavalry, whom he had induced, after much patient persuasion, to come over to the armory and informally talk to the boys on the delights and discomforts of chasing Indians around through the Bad Lands.

Now, much as Larry respected his own corps, he held the regulars in even higher esteem, for he always had heard "The Army" held up as a pattern of all that is, in a military sense, good-and-holy and generally worthy of imitation by the hard-working and much-cursed-at volunteer. So when it came to his ears that a regular officer--and one, too, who actually had seen holes shot through people!--really was going to honor his domain by his presence, he went to work with even greater energy than he had displayed at inspection time, and accomplished a house-cleaning such as would have warmed the heart of any New England matron to witness.

First he swept the floor, and then he dusted from the furniture the dust which had been raised by that operation, and then he swept up again the dust which the dusting had caused to return to the carpet--and then he paused, reflecting that, in the nature of things, he might continue this alternation forever unless he stopped. So, after a final dusting, he bent his energies to the arrangement of the chairs, marshalling them in ranks of military rigidity, and squinting critically along each row--muttering, "Back in de center, dere!" or "Up on de left, dad-gast-yer-shoulder-blades!" as he rectified the alignment. Then he polished the glasses of the pictures which form the nondescript art-gallery of the company; and finally he put the crowning touch to his afternoon's work by brushing the plush cushions of the great, carved chair in which the captain seats himself on occasions of state and ceremony.

He had been so busy that he had allowed his supper-hour to slip by unheeded, and when he happened to glance up at the clock he gave a low whistle of surprise, and said to himself, "Quarter pas' sev'n? _Wow!_ how de time's be'n humpin' along? Well, I s'pose I might's well skip me grub now: de boys'll be showin' up in less 'n a shake."

He had given one last critical glance around the room and was turning towards the door, when his eye fell upon the great, wrought-iron lamp which the company rifle-team had won, a couple of years before, in a match with "K," of the Fourth, and suddenly he remembered that the oil in it nearly had been burned out. Now, the boys of "A" regard that lamp with particular affection, because it was won in a contest to which they had been egged-on by a series of peculiarly exasperating events; and it has become a time-honored custom of the company to have the lamp a-glow on every occasion when its members are assembled by night. So Major Larry, knowing that the absence of its cheerful rays would rouse the wrath of the company kickers, picked up the heavy mass of iron, and lugged it into the equipment-room.

Here he filled the lamp, polished the chimney, trimmed the wick, lighted it, and had raised his burden to carry it back to its place--when, in some unexplained way, he lost his grip upon it, and the whole heavy affair went crashing down upon the floor. In an instant the scattered oil was in a blaze, and as Larry stood there, horrified at his mishap, he saw the creeping tongues of flame beginning to lick their way up the varnished woodwork of the nearest lockers. In two jumps he was at the door: a dozen steps more brought him, yelling "Fire!" at the top-pitch of his voice, out into the corridor--and then there came to him a thought that almost stilled the beating of his heart.

"Good Gawd!" he gasped, stopping short in his tracks, "dey's five hundred round o' ca'tridge an' a ten-pound canister o' powder in de nex' locker to de one dat's burnin'--an' de door's locked! Oh, what'll I do--_what'll_ I do!"

Well, here's what he did do--and we have fallen into the way of believing that no man could have done much better work. On the wall of the company room, in the midst of a collection of flint-lock muskets and other antiquated contrivances for achieving wild shots, hung a heavy axe, a relic of the _ante-bellum_ days when "A"--at that time an independent company--added dignity to its parades by maintaining a small but ferocious-looking pioneer corps. Rushing in from the hallway, Larry tore this long-disused implement from its hooks, and dashed with it back into the equipment-room. By this time the flames had gained a fair start, and the blazing woodwork was crackling merrily, while the air was heavy and suffocating from the smoke of the burning oil and varnish.

With a single blow of the axe Larry sent the flimsy locker-door crashing from its hinges, and then, stooping down, he felt around for the powder can. _The locker was empty!_

"Yah! yer jay," he snarled at himself, as the smoke choked him; "yer poor, dam' jay--it's de _nex'_ one!" and he snatched up the axe, swung it again, and splintered the burning door of the adjoining locker.

This time he hit his mark, for after an instant of frantic groping in the thick smoke, he got his hands upon the canister and flung it far from him, out into the room beyond. Then, by an effort almost superhuman, he dragged out the heavy, wooden case of cartridges, staggered with it through the flame and smoke--and fell in a dead faint across it, just as he cleared the threshold. And there, not five seconds later, the armorer found him, when he came rushing into the room with a line of stand-pipe hose, by the agency of which the blaze speedily was conquered.

Poor little major! His hands and face were cruelly burned, his thick crop of curly, red hair was wofully singed, and he had inhaled smoke enough to demoralize utterly his breathing-machinery. The firemen--for whom, upon hearing Larry's shout of alarm, the armorer had stopped to telephone--tenderly bore the lad downstairs to the staff-room; and just before the first of "A's" men strolled into the building an ambulance rolled away from the door, bearing the still unconscious form of the company kid.

Around the armory, that night, conversation was carried on in rather quiet tones, and nobody talked much except of Larry and his heroism. As soon as Stearns came in he was told of what had happened, and sending immediately for a cab he drove off post-haste to the hospital, leaving his lieutenants to receive his Army guest. In half an hour he was back again, with word that Larry, though badly burned and in great pain, was in no immediate danger--at which bit of news there came an audible sigh of relief from the men who had crowded around him. And then some one sung out "Hooray!" and the rest came in with a shout that set the window panes to rattling.

Lieutenant Hackett was unfortunate in his audience that evening, for the boys--though they listened with studied politeness to his remarks--had something else upon their minds. But he got as much applause as any one could wish, when--at the close of his talk--he said, "Congress awards a Medal of Honor to those in the Army who perform deeds of exceptional bravery, and I can recall a long list of those who have received the decoration; but I wish to say that I can call to mind no instance of purer grit than that displayed today by your unlucky little comrade."

It certainly seemed a long time before Larry came back to us, but one night he turned up in our midst, as happy as ever and nine or ten degrees prouder than a colonel on the Governor's staff--for Stearns had fitted him out with a complete drum-corps uniform, made expressly for him, and Colonel Elliott had used his influence to make for his especial benefit a vacancy at the advance-end of the big drum. The affairs of the regiment ran more smoothly after his return, and I can remember the change in the aspect of "A's" men--for Larry was himself again, and funnier than ever.

But there was still more glory awaiting him. About two weeks after he had "re-joined," we had a battalion-drill in the big hall, and after it a dress parade. The companies had got wind of what was coming, and the ranks were full. It was Larry's first appearance with the drum-corps, and when the field music "sounded-off" along the line, the air with which he stepped out lacked little of being superb.

The adjutant had received the reports and published the orders, when the colonel, in a low tone, said a word or two to him which caused him to face about and walk along the front of the battalion to the spot where Larry was standing, stiff as a post, among the musicians. In a moment he returned, bringing the bewildered lad with him, and then the colonel stepped a pace forward to meet him, and pinned upon his breast a bronze Maltese cross, inscribed:

"A" Co., 3rd Infantry TO Larry Callahan FOR DISTINGUISHED BRAVERY.

And beside this simple decoration he fastened the regimental badge, brilliant with its glittering gold and bright enamel--a tribute from the officers of the field and staff.

Of course the colonel made a little speech, but it was a short one and the words were simple. As he finished he shook hands with the boy, and then brought the battalion to a "carry," after which he called out, "Present: _arms!_"

Up with a snap came the long line of rifles; down drooped the colors until their golden fringes touched the floor; the flashing blades of the officers rose and fell--and little Larry Callahan had been saluted by the crack regiment of the Old Commonwealth!

"Now, adjutant," said Colonel Elliott, when the line again stood at attention, "just take Major Larry to the left of the line and march him along the front to the right, so that all the men can see him. Chin in, Larry, my boy--and keep a stiff upper lip!"

The boy said never a word, but saluted and then started off with the adjutant. For a time discipline went into eclipse: the men yelled "_Hi! Hi!_" and thumped their rifle-butts upon the floor, until the great hall shook to its very foundations--while the officers not only neglected to check the uproar, but even went so far as to help in swelling it.

Larry stood it all like a Spartan, tramping along with eyes to the front and head well up, until he came abreast of the center, where "A" stood in line, with the colors. But here he broke down, hid his face behind the adjutant's arm, and sobbed as though his heart would burst, when the sixty men--his friends and comrades, every one of them--broke into a wild yell of applause as he came before them.

Well, that ended the ovation; for Captain Stearns, seeing at a glance that the strain had been too heavy for the boy to bear, raised his hand in a warning gesture to his men, picked up the little hero, swung him up upon his shoulder, and marched with him straight along the line and then out of the hall, leaving his company to take care of itself as best it might. And yet, so far as my knowledge goes, Colonel Elliott never has taken the slightest notice of this most un-military proceeding of the captain's!

CONCERNING THE VALUE OF SLEEP

CONCERNING THE VALUE OF SLEEP.

Over the mantel in Major Pollard's smoking-room, in a heavy, elaborately carved frame, there hangs a colored photogravure of De Neuville's "_Une Pièce en Danger_," that terrible group--outlined against a gray background of battle-haze--of rearing, plunging horses, and of fiercely fighting German cavalrymen and French gunners, surging in desperate struggle around a limbered gun. Many a time I've sat and looked up at it, idly wondering whether the troop of Cuirassiers, dimly visible in the drifting smoke at the right, would come rushing into the rumpus in time to save the battered handful of artillerymen and the piece to which they so grimly and absurdly cling. But all this is neither here nor there: for the picture tells its own story--while the story I have in mind to tell is quite another one.

It's not a very thrilling story. In fact, I doubt if it will have much interest for any one outside the regiment; but it will please Pollard to see it in cold, black type, and I'm indebted to him for so many comfortable hours, passed in the fragrant atmosphere of that same smoking-room of his, that I gladly take this opportunity to even up in the matter of obligations.

It so happens that these are times of peace, and--though there are a few of us who childishly consider that the very peacefulness of the times affords a most excellent opportunity to prepare for war--the tranquillity of everything bids fair to continue undisturbed. But even in quiet days something in the blood of the Anglo-Saxon craves rivalry and contention, and so from year to year we of the volunteers get together and shoot--projecting much lead at remote bullseyes, in order to find out who are the most disgracefully erratic marksmen.

Now, in these days the soldier who cannot shoot--however pleasing to the eye he may be--is of no earthly sort of use. Pollard can shoot. On battalion drill he sometimes may find himself at a loss for just the proper command; and once, in earlier days, I heard him direct his astonished company to execute "Right forward, fours _left_!"--but there is no denying that he can shoot.

To the scroll-work on the bottom of the great carved frame enclosing the picture of which I have spoken, there is fastened a bevelled, gilded panel, very modestly lettered in black, "LAST SHOT, 1890:" and this ideally simple inscription commemorates a shot which--if not "heard 'round the world"--has not yet ceased to be remembered whenever, in the company-rooms of the Third, men drift into rifle-talk.

Pollard was not always a major. It was only last October, when, in the nature of things, leaves were falling freely, that two pairs of bright, golden ones found a resting-place upon his broad shoulders. Back in '90, he was captain of "M" Company; and one night, early in September of that year, he found himself badly out of sorts at the news that one of the best men on his company rifle-team had slipped, fallen, and gone into temporary retirement with a broken wrist.

"It's too blistering bad!" said Pollard, as, late that night, he stood upon the steps of the armory and scowled out into the darkness. "Even with Harvey on the team, we had no sure thing--'H' is shooting so like sin!--but now I don't know _where_ we are. Well, Johnny, you'll have to do your cleverest, and perhaps we'll get there in spite of you."

"Thanks!" said the younger officer, thus addressed. "You're mighty encouraging, aren't you? Well, I've always said that I ought to have been put on the team, and to-morrow I'll prove it. Wow! how it blows!"

"Yes, it's breezy," assented Pollard, listening to the lively rat-a-tat played by the loose flag-halliards upon the tower-staff, "and later it'll rain. To-morrow, though, will be a good enough day; see if it isn't. Come along, my son, it's high time we were getting bedward."

"Now, see here, Johnny," he observed, a moment later, stopping at the head of the street, "I've got to make good time to catch my train, but I'll pause to remark that you must go home _now_! Don't color any pipes to-night; don't take a pencil and go to figuring on the scores, for matches aren't won in that way; and go to sleep early. _Sleep_ is the all-important thing, and without it you'll not do anything to-morrow. Got all that? Good-night," and, tossing to his shoulder the rifle he carried, he rapidly strode away.

"Humph! he thinks I can't hold up my end," thought the lieutenant, glancing at the receding figure of his superior officer; "I'll show him! I'm sorry for Harvey, but I'm inclined to think that his place will be filled tolerably well. Pollard's right, though, about the sleep question. I'd like to play a game or two of billiards, but," heroically, "but--I'll go home."

Meanwhile Pollard was hastening towards his train. As he came in sight of the illuminated clock-dial upon the station his rapid walk quickened into a trot; and the trot, in its turn, gave place to a run when, as he passed in through the wide doorway, he heard the clang of the last gong. However, by a spirited dash down the long platform, he caught the handrail of the last car in the moving train, and swung himself, panting but triumphant, upon the steps.

"Enemy behind us?" inquired the brakeman, pausing in his task of knotting the dangling bell-cord, and glancing down at the uniformed figure below him.

"Didn't have time to see," said Pollard, laughing at the aptness of the question. "I ran without waiting to find out," and, as the train swung around a curve and rattled over a switch, he lurched through the doorway, and dropped into the nearest empty seat. Fifteen minutes later he found himself at his destination, and leaving behind him the oasis of brightness formed by the lights of the little station he plunged into the desert of suburban gloom lying beyond.