Si Klegg
Chapter 274 : "Very good, very good, indeed. You'll be an ornament to Headquarters."A

"Very good, very good, indeed. You'll be an ornament to Headquarters."

And the General, entering the room at that time, added:

"Yes, you are as fine a looking soldier as one would wish to see, and an examaple to others. But you have not your Corporal's chevrons on. Allow me to present you with a pair. It gives me pleasure, for you have well earned them."

Stepping back into his office he returned with the chevrons in his hand.

"There, find a tailor outside somewhere to sew them on. You are now a non-commissioned officer on my staff, and I expect you to do all you can to maintain its character and dignity."

Shorty's face flushed with pride as he saluted, and thought, without saying:

"You jest bet I will. Any loafer that don't pay proper respect to this here staff'll git his blamed neck broke."

"Here," said the Chief Clerk, handing Shorty an official envelope, when the latter returned from having his chevrons sewed on. "Take this down to Col. Billings. Mind you do it in proper style. Don't get to sa.s.sing old Billings. Stick the envelope in your belt, walk into the office, take the position of a soldier, salute, and hand him the envelope, saying, 'With the compliments of the General,' salute again, about-face, and walk out."

"I'll want to punch his rotten old head off the minute I set eyes on him," remarked Shorty, sotto voce; "but the character and dignity of the staff must be maintained."

Lieut.-Col. Billings started, and his face flushed, when he saw Shorty stalk in, severely erect and soldierly. Billings was too little of a soldier to comprehend the situation. His first thought was that Shorty, having been taken under the General's wing, had come back to triumph over him, and he prepared himself with a volley of abuse to meet that of his visitor. But Shorty, with stern eyes straight to the front, marched up to him, saluted in one-two-three time, drew the envelope from his belt, and thrusting it at him as he would his gun to the inspecting officer on parade, announced in curtly official tones, "With General's compliments, sir," saluted again, about-faced as if touched with a spring, and marched stiffly toward the door.

Billings hurriedly glanced at the papers, and saw that instead of some unpleasant order from the General, which he had feared, they were merely some routine matters. His bullying instinct at once rea.s.serted itself:

"Puttin' on a lot o' scollops, since, just because you're detailed at Headquarters," he called out after Shorty. "More style than a blue-ribbon horse at a county fair, just because the General took a little notice of you. But you'll not last long. I know you."

"Sir," said Shorty, facing about and stiffly saluting, "if you've got any message for the General, I'll deliver it. If you hain't, keep your head shet."

"O, go on; go on, now, you two-for-a-cent Corporal. Don't you give me any more o' your slack, or I'll report you for your impudence, and have them stripes jerked offen you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?" SAID THE GAMBLER. 141]

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, unb.u.t.toned 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."

"h.e.l.lo, Injianny; what are you doin' here?" inquired a man in civilian clothes, but unmistakably a gambler.

Shorty remembered him at once as the man with whom he had had the adventure with the loaded dice at Murfreesboro. With the fraternity of the cla.s.s, neither remembered that little misadventure against the other. They had matched their wits for a wrestle, and when the grapple was over it was over.

Shorty therefore replied pleasantly:

"O, jest loafin' back here, gittin' well o' a crack on the head and the camp fever."

"Into anything to put in the time?"

"Naah," said Shorty weariedly. "Nearly dead for something. Awful stoopid layin' around up there among them hayseeds, doin' nothin'. Jest run down to Jeffersonville to see if I couldn't strike something that'd some life in it."

"Well, I kin let you into a good thing. I've bin runnin' that shebang over there, with another man, and doin' well, but he let his temper git away with him, and shpped a knife into a sucker, and they've got him in jail, where he'll stay awhile. I must have another partner. Got any money?"

"A hundred or so," answered Shorty.

"Well, that's enough. I don't want money so much as the right kind of a man. Put up your stuff, and I'll let you in cahoots with me, and we'll make a bar'l o' money out o' these new troops that'll begin coming down this week."

"I like the idee. But how do you know you kin run your game. This Provost-Marshall--"

"O, the Provost's all right. He's an old friend o' mine. I have him dead to rights. Only whack up fair with him, and you're all right. Only pinches them that want to hog on him and won't share. I've bin runnin'

right along here for weeks, and 've had no trouble. I give up my little divvy whenever he asks for it."

"If I was only certain o' that," said Shorty meditatively, "I'd--"

"Certain? Come right over here to that ranch, and have a drink, and I'll show you, so's you can't be mistaken. I tell you, I'm solid as a rock with him."

When seated at a quiet table, with their gla.s.ses in front of them, the gambler pulled some papers from his breast pocket, and selecting one shoved it at Shorty with the inquiry: "There, what do you think o'

that?"

Shorty read over laboriously:

"Deer Bat: Send me 50 please. I set behind two small pair last night, while the other feller had a full, & Ime strapt this morning. Yores,

"Billings."

"That seems convincing," said Shorty.

"Then look at this," said the gambler, producing another paper. It read: