"You've done well, sergeant," said Sam. "I will mention you to the general when we return."

"Thank you, sir," said the man, and his voice sounded strangely familiar. Sam peered into his face. He had certainly seen it before.

"What is your name, sergeant?"

"Thatcher, sir."

"Why, of course, you're Thatcher—Josh Thatcher of Slowburgh. Don't you remember that night at the hotel when we had a drink together? Don't you remember Captain Jinks?"

"Yes, sir, but I didn't know you was he—a colonel, too, sir," said the man, as Sam shook his hand warmly.

"I'm glad to see that you're doing credit to your town," said Sam.

"They'll be surprised to hear it at home, sir," said Thatcher. "They was always down on me. They never gave me a chance. Here they all speaks to me like you do, sir. Why, Dr. Amen slapped me on the back and called me a fine fellow when I brought him in a big load of stuff. I got it from houses of people I didn't even know, and he said I was a good fellow. At Slowburgh I took a chicken now and then, and only from somebody who'd done me some mean trick, and they said I was a thief. Once or twice I burned a barn there just for fun, and never anybody's barn that wasn't down on me and rich enough to stand it, and they said I was a criminal. And as for women, if they ever seed me with one, they all said I was dissolute and a disgrace to the place, and here I have ten times more of 'em than I want, and everybody says it's all right, and they made me corporal and sergeant, and the generals talked to me like I was somebody, and I swear as much as I like. I never shot anybody at home. I suppose they'd have strung me up if I had, and here I just pepper any pigtail I like. They called me a criminal at Slowburgh, just think of that! I say that criminals are just soldiers who ain't got a job—who ain't had any chance at all, I says. I wasn't ever judged right, I wasn't."

There were tears in Thatcher's eyes as he ended this speech.

"You're a fine chap," said Sam. "I'll tell all about you when you get home. This war has been the making of you. How are the other Slowburgh boys?"

"They're all right, except my cousin Tom. He's down sick with something. He's run about a little too much. He always was a-sparking. He never knowed how to take care of himself. Jim Thomson was wounded once, but he's all right now. We've all had fever, but that's over too. But the fire's spreading, sir; we'd better get out of this."

As he spoke a heavy charred beam fell just in front of him, and the end of it came down with its full weight on Sam's leg, snapping the bone in two near the ankle. The foot lay at right angles, and the bone protruded. Several soldiers lifted the log and Thatcher drew Sam out, and they bore him in haste out of the building. He was laid on the ground quite unconscious, at some distance from the temple, while the flames roared and leaped toward heaven, wrapping the graceful, lofty nine-story pagoda in their folds. It was in a beautiful garden that he lay, near a pool filled with lotus flowers and at the end of a rustic bridge. The air was heavy with the perfume of lilies. A surgeon was called, and before long he was able to put the foot in place, but only after sawing off a large piece of bone. A cart was obtained, Sam was laid in it, a bottle of whisky was poured down his throat, and the journey to the city began. The patient on coming to himself experienced no pain. The liquor he had taken made him feel supremely happy. He was in an ecstasy of exultation, and would have liked to embrace all mankind. But gradually this feeling wore off and his leg began to pain him, at first slightly, then more and more until it became excruciating. The road was almost impassable, and every jolt caused him agony. For twelve hours he underwent these tortures until he reached the camp in the city, and was at once transferred to a temporary hospital which had been improvised in a public building. Here he lay for many weeks, suffering much, but gradually regaining the use of his leg. He was in charge of a particularly efficient woman doctor from home who had volunteered to serve with the Red Cross Society. Sam felt most grateful to her for her care, but he strongly disapproved of her attitude to things military. She seemed to have a contempt for the whole military establishment, insisted on calling him "young man," altho he was a colonel, usually addressed lieutenants as "boys," and laughed at uniforms, salutes, and ceremonies of all kinds.

"Men are the silliest things in the world," she said one day. "Do you suppose women would have a War Department that spent a lot of money on bombshells to blow people up and then a lot more on Red Cross Societies to piece them together again? Why, we would just leave the soldiers at home, and save all the money, and it would be just the same in the end."

"Not the kind of women I know," said Sam, thinking of Marian.

"I mean my kind of woman," said the doctor. "Do you think we'd sell guns and rifles to the Porsslanese and teach them how to use them, and then go to work and fight them after having armed them?" And she laughed a merry laugh.

"And do you think we'd pay men to invent all sorts of infernal machines like the Barnes torpedo, and then have our big ships blown up by them in time of peace. That is what brought on the whole Castalian and Cubapine war. The idea of praising a man like Barnes! He's been a curse to the world."

"It was really a blessing," said Sam. "It has spread civilization and Christianity all over."

"Well, that's one way of doing it," said she. "But when there are more women like me we'll take things out of the hands of you silly men and run them ourselves. Now, young man, you've talked enough. Turn over and go to sleep."

Cleary called on his friend almost every day and kept him informed. He sent home glowing accounts of Sam as the conqueror of the Great White Temple, and described his sufferings for his country with artistic skill. He also began work on the series of articles which Sam was expected to write for Scribblers' Magazine. His gossip about the events in the various camps entertained Sam very much, altho he was often irritated as well. In his capacity of correspondent Cleary saw and knew everything.

"Sam," said he one day, as the invalid was sitting up in an easy-chair at the window—"Sam, it's so long since I was at East Point that I'm becoming more and more of a civilian. You army people begin to amuse me. There's always something funny about you. The Tutonians are the funniest of all. The little red-cheeked officers with their blond mustaches turned up to their eyes are too funny to live. You feel like kissing them and sending them to bed. And the airs they put on! One of their soldiers happened to elbow a lieutenant the other day, and the chap ran him through with his sword, and no one called him to account. The officers jostle and browbeat any civilian who will submit to it, and then try to get him into a duel, but I believe they're a cowardly lot at bottom. No man of real courage would bluster all over the place so."

"I admire their discipline," said Sam.

"And then there's the Franks. They're not quite so conceited, but they're awfully touchy. I think the mustaches measure conceit. The Tutonians' stick up straight, the Franks' stick right out at each side waxed to a point, and ours droop downward."

Sam began to twist his mustache upward, but it would not stay.

"I was in to see a Frank military trial the other day," said Cleary. "It was the most comical thing. There were three big generals on the court. I mean big in rank. They were about four feet high in size, and they kept looking at their mustaches in hand-glasses and combing their hair with pocket-combs. They were trying one of their lieutenants for having sold some secret military plans to a Tutonian attache. Now the joke of it is that military attaches are appointed just for the purpose of buying secrets, and everybody knows it. They're licensed to do it. And then when they do just what they're licensed for, everybody makes a fuss. Well, the secrets were sold; there wasn't the slightest reason for thinking this lieutenant had sold them, but they had to punish somebody. They say they drew his name from a box. They had three officers to testify against him, and they were the stupidest liars I ever saw. They just blundered from beginning to end, and the president of the court helped them out and told them what to say, and corrected them. The third man said nothing at all except, 'Yes, my general; yes, my general.' Then they called the witnesses for the accused, and two officers stepped forward, when a couple of orderlies grabbed each of them, stuffed a gag into their mouths, and carried them out, while the court looked the other way, and the crowd shouted, 'Long live the army!' The court adjourned on account of the 'contumacy of the witnesses for the defense.' I went in again the next morning, and they announced that both the witnesses had committed suicide. Then the president took a judgment out of his pocket which I had seen him fingering all the first day, and read it off just as it had been written before the trial began, condemning the poor devil to twenty years' imprisonment. I never saw such a farce. Everybody shouted for the army, and the little generals kissed each other and cried, and they had a great time of it. And the president made a speech in which he said that they had saved the army and consequently the country too, and that honor and glory and the fatherland had been redeemed. They've all been promoted and decorated since. They're a queer lot, those Frank officers."

"We ought not to be too quick in judging foreigners," said Sam. "Their methods may seem strange to us, but we are not competent to criticize them. Let each army judge for itself."

"As a matter of fact," said Cleary, "every army is down on the others. If you believe what they say about each other they're a pretty bad lot. They all say that the Mosconians are barbarians, and they call the Tutonians thugs. The rest of them call the Franks woman-hunters, and they all call us and the Anglians auctioneers and looters and shopkeepers, and drunkards, and we're known as temple-burners and vandals too."

"What an outrage!" ejaculated Sam.

"The Anglians are more like us, but they've got a few old generals and then a lot of small boys, and nothing much between. I should think the generals would feel like school-masters. I told one of their officers that, and he said it was better than having second lieutenants seventy-five years old as we do. We're loving each other a lot just now, the Anglians and us, but one of our naval officers let on to me that they were dying to have a war with them. You see, since South Africa nobody's afraid of them except the Porsslanese, and they don't read the papers. And how the Anglians despise the Franks! Why, we were discussing lying in war at a lunch-party, and one of their generals was there, a rather dense sort of a machine of a man. They had been saying that lying was an essential part of war, and that an officer must be a good liar and able to deceive the enemy well, as well as a good fighter, and the conversation drifted off into the question of lying in general. Somebody asked the general if he would say he was a Tutonian to save his life. 'Of course,' he answered. 'But would you say you were a Frank under the same circumstances?' asked some one else. 'Certainly not,' he said. Everybody roared, but he didn't see any joke, and looked as grave as an owl all the rest of the afternoon. Then the commanders are all so jealous of each other. They are spying on each other and putting sticks in each other's wheels. Officers are queer people. There's only one profession that can compete with them for feline amenities, and that is the actress profession."

"Cleary," said Sam, "I let you talk this way for old acquaintance's sake, but I wouldn't take it from any one else."

"Fiddlesticks! You know I'm right. The Anglian officers like to hint at the frauds in our quartermaster's department at Havilla, but I shut them up by asking how much their officers made off the horses they bought for South Africa in Hungary. Then they shut up like a clasp-knife. Officers talk a lot about their 'brother officers,' and you'd think they loved each other a lot, but I find they're all glad so many were killed in South Africa because it gives them a lot of promotion. I tell you the officers of all the armies like to have a good list of dead officers after each battle, if they are only their superiors in rank. I've been picking up all I can among the different soldiers, and learning a lot. I was just talking to a lot of Anglian soldiers now. They were sharpening sabers and bayonets on grindstones. One of the older ones was telling me how they used to flog in the army. They had a regular parade, and the drummers used to lay on the lash, while a doctor watched so that they shouldn't go too far. Sometimes the young subalterns who were in command would faint away at the sight.

"'But it was so manly, sir,' the fellow said to me. 'The army isn't what it was. But the other armies keep it up still, and we still birch youngsters in the navy so we needn't despair of the world.'"

"When will the campaign be over?" asked Sam.

"There's no telling. All the armies are afraid to leave, for fear the ones that are left will get some advantage from the Porsslanese Government. They're a high old lot of allies. It's a queer business. But the missionaries are as queer as any of them. You ought to have heard old Amen last Sunday. How he whooped things up! He took his text from the Gospel of St. Loot, I think! He was trying to stir up Taffy to be more severe. Amen ought to be a soldier. Our minister plenipotentiary isn't a backward chap either. I went through the Imperial palace with him and his party the other day, and they pretty nearly cleaned it out, just for souvenirs, you know. He didn't take anything himself, as far as I could see; but his women, bless my soul, they filled their pockets with jade and ivory and what-not. There were some foreign looters in there at the same time, great swells too, and they just smashed the plate-glass over the cabinets and filled their pockets and their arms too. One old Porsslanese official was standing there, a high mandarin of some sort, and he had an emerald necklace around his neck. Some diplomat or other walked up to him and quietly took it off, and the old man didn't stir, but the tears were rolling down his cheeks."

"He had no right to complain," said Sam. "We clearly have the right to the contents of a conquered city by the rules of war."

"Perhaps. But there are some curious war rules. Some of the armies shoot all natives in soldiers' uniforms because they are soldiers, and then they shoot all natives who resist them in civil dress, because they are not soldiers and have no right to fight. I suppose they ought to go about naked. They used to kill their prisoners with the butt-end of their rifles, but that breaks the rifles, and now they generally use the bayonet."

"Here are some newspapers," said he on another occasion. "You've been made a brigadier for capturing Gomaldo. Isn't that great? But they will call you 'Captain Jinks' at home, no matter what your rank is. The papers say so. The song has made it stick."

"I'm sorry for that," said Sam. "It would be pleasanter to be called 'General.'"

"It's all the same," said Cleary. "Wasn't Napoleon called the Little Corporal? It's really more distinguished."

"Perhaps it is," said Sam contentedly.

"Some of the papers criticize us a little too," added Cleary. "They say we are acting brutally here and in the Cubapines. Of course only a few say it, but their number is increasing."

"They make themselves ridiculous," said Sam. "They don't see how ludicrous their suggestions are that we should actually retire and let these countries relapse into barbarism. As that fellow said at Havilla, they have no sense of humor."

"And yet," retorted Cleary, "our greatest humorists, Mark Swain, Mr. Tooley, and the best cartoonists, and our only really humorous paper, Knife, are on that side."

"But they are only humorists," cried Sam, "mere professional jokers. You can't expect serious sense from them. They are mere buffoons. The serious people here, such as Dr. Amen, are with us to a man."

"I saw old Amen get caught the other day," said Cleary. "I was interviewing the colonel of the 15th, and in came Amen and began talking about the Porsslanese—what barbarians they were, no religion, no belief, no faith. Why, the idea of self-sacrifice was utterly unknown to them! Just then in came a young officer and said, 'Colonel, the son of that old native we're going to shoot this afternoon for looting, is bothering us and says he wants to be shot instead of his father. What shall we do with him?' Amen said good-day and cleared out. By the way, the colonel of the 15th is in a hole just now. He was shut up in the legations, you know, and all the women there were down on him because he wouldn't make the sentries salute them when the men were dead tired with watching. They are charging him with cowardice. There'll never be an end of this backbiting. It's almost as sickening as the throat-cutting and stabbing. I confess I'm getting sick of it all. When you see a private shoot an old native for not blacking his boots, when the poor fellow was trying to understand him and couldn't, and smiling as best he could, it's rather tough; and I've seen twenty babies if I've seen one lying in the streets with a bayonet hole in them. They have executions every day in one camp or another. I saw one coolie, who had been working fourteen hours at a stretch loading carts, shot down because he hadn't the strength to go on."

"I'm afraid the heat is telling on you, Cleary," said Sam. "This is all sickly sentimentality. War is war. The trouble with you is that there has been no regular campaign on to occupy your attention. This lying about doing nothing is a bad thing for everybody. Wait till the Tutonian Emperor comes out and we'll have something to do."

"He won't find any enemy to fight," said Cleary.

"Trust him for that," replied Sam. "He's every inch a soldier, and he'll find the way to make war, depend upon it. He's a religious man too, and he will back up the missionaries better than we've done."

"Yes. Amen thinks the world of him. Amen ought to have been a Tutonian soldier. He says the best imagery of religion comes from war. I told him I had an article written about a fight which said that our men 'fought like demons' and 'yelled like fiends,' and I would change it to read that they fought like seraphs and yelled like cherubim, but he didn't think it was funny."



CHAPTER XIII

The War-Lord



As soon as Sam was well enough to be moved the doctors sent him down to the coast, and Cleary, who had been up and down the river several times in the course of his newspaper work, went with him. Sam still felt feeble, and altho he could walk without a crutch, he now had a decided limp which was sure to be permanent. They arrived at the port a few days before the expected arrival of the Emperor, and the whole place was overflowing with excitement. The Emperor, who had never seen a skirmish, was notwithstanding considered the greatest general of his time, and he was coming now to prove it before the world and incidentally to wreak vengeance upon a people, one of whom had killed his ambassador. The town was profusely decorated, the Tutonian garrison was increased, and Count von Balderdash, the commander-in-chief, himself took command. Six fleets were drawn up in the wide bay to await the coming of the war-lord. It was announced that he would make his entry at night, and that the hour of arrival had been timed for a dark moonless night. This was asserted to be for the better display of fireworks. Finally, one morning the Tutonian fleet of four or five large vessels was sighted in the distance. They steamed slowly up and down in the distance until night fell, and then, as their colored electric lights, outlining the masts and funnels, became distinct in the darkness, they began to approach. Each of the awaiting fleets was distinguished with particular-colored lights, and they had taken their position at a considerable distance from the shore, leaving a passage near the ruined forts for the Emperor. Sam and Cleary found a good lookout on a dismantled bastion, and saw the whole parade. As the leading vessel came near the first fleet the latter saluted with its guns. Suddenly the lights on the advancing ship were extinguished, and a strong flash-light was throw from above upon the forward deck. There in bold relief stood a single figure, brilliantly illuminated by the light. Cleary and Sam turned their field-glasses upon it.

"By Jove! it's the Emperor," cried Cleary. "He's got on his admiral's uniform, and now he's passing his own fleet that Balderdash brought with him."

They looked at the striking scene for some minutes, and the crowds on the wharves and shores murmured with surprise.

"Bless my soul! he has disappeared," said Cleary again.

Sure enough, he had suddenly passed out of sight, and as suddenly the flash-light went out and the lights on the masts reappeared. In another moment these lights were extinguished, and the flash-light revealed a form standing in the same place in a theatrical attitude with raised sword and uplifted face.

"I believe it's he again," said Cleary. "He must have a trap-door. He's got on another uniform. I think it's a Frank admiral's uniform. There go the Frank guns. He's passing their fleet."

"Yes, it is a Frank naval uniform," said a foreign officer near them, as he scrutinized the deck with his glasses.

Before each of the fleets the same maneuvre was carried out. As their guns fired, the Emperor would disappear for a few moments, and in an incalculably short time he would appear again in the uniform of an admiral of the fleet in question. When he had passed the last fleet he disappeared once more, and came back to sight clad in the white and silver armor of a general officer of his own army, with helmet and plume. The flash-light now changed colors through the whole gamut of the rainbow, and the Emperor knelt in the attitude of Columbus discovering America.

Sam was immensely impressed.

"Oh, Cleary!" he said, "if we only had an Emperor."

"The President is doing his best," said Cleary. "Don't blame him."

"Oh, but what can he do? Why haven't we some one like that to embody the ideal of the State, to picture us to ourselves, to realize our aspirations?"

As he said this a strange noise arose from the crowd near the landing-stage where the Emperor was about to alight. The far greater part of this crowd was composed of natives, and they had been entirely taken aback by the exhibition. They were just beginning to understand it, and as the war-lord moved about the deck followed by the glare of the flash-light, and again struck an attitude before descending into the gig which was to take him ashore, some one of the Porsslanese in the crowd laughed. His neighbor laughed too, then another and then another, until the whole native multitude was laughing. The laugh rippled along the shore through the long stretch of natives collected there like the swells from a passing steamer. It seemed to extend back from the shore through the whole town, and, tho it was undoubtedly fancy, Sam thought he heard it spreading, like the rings from a stone thrown into the water, over the entire land. The foreigners stood aghast. The Porsslanese are not a laughing people. They had never been known to laugh before except in the most feeble manner. The events of the past year had not been especially humorous, and the coming of the great war-lord was far from being a laughing matter. Yet with the perversity of heathen they had selected this impressive occasion for showing their incurable barbarism and bad taste. Sam fairly shuddered.

"It's a sacrilege," he cried. "I believe that nothing short of extermination will reclaim this unhappy land. They are calling down the vengeance of heaven upon them."

They walked back to town with the foreign officer.

"He's a wonderful man, the Emperor," said he, in indifferent English. "How quickly he changed his clothes, and what a compliment it was!"

"A sort of lightning-change artist," said Cleary. "He could make his fortune at a continuous performance."

In the dark Sam blushed for his friend, but fortunately their companion did not understand the allusion.

"You should have seen him when he visited our Queen," he said. "She came to meet him in the uniform of a Tutonian hussar, breeches and all. You can imagine how he was touched by it. That very afternoon he called upon her dressed in the costume of one of our royal princesses with a long satin train. It made him wonderfully popular. Our Queen responded at once by making his infant daughters colonels of several of our regiments. One of them is colonel of mine," he added proudly.

"What would you do if you went to war with Tutonia, and one of the kids should order you to shoot on your own army?" asked Cleary. "It might be embarrassing."

But the foreigner did not understand this either.

"And to think that these Porsslanese dogs have received him with laughter!" said he.

At eleven o'clock on the same evening the Emperor was closeted with his aged field-marshal, von Balderdash, in a handsomely furnished sitting-room. A Turk's head had been set up in the middle of the room, and His Majesty, dressed in the uniform of a cavalry general, was engaged in making passes at it with a saber. He had already taken a ride on horseback with his staff. The field-marshal stood wearily leaning against the wall at the side of a desk piled up with papers.

"We have avenged the death of our ambassador," Balderdash was saying. "We have sent out five punitive expeditions in all. Our quarter of the imperial city shows the power of arms more completely than any other. We have set the highest standard, and our army is the admiration of all."

The count watched the face of his master as he spoke, but there was no sign of satisfaction in it. The Emperor was out of humor.

"We have not done enough," he said. "If we had, those pagans would not have ventured to laugh—yes, actually to laugh—in our imperial presence. Balderdash, you have not done your duty. I shall take command myself at once. We must have a real punitive expedition, and not one of your imitations. If they want war, let them have it."

"We can not have war, Your Majesty, without an enemy, and we can find no enemy. All their armed men are killed or have fled, and the rest of the population run away from us as soon as we appear."

"Count," said the Emperor sternly, "do you remember your oath to our person? Do you know your duties as a field-marshal?"

"I think so, Your Majesty."

"Is it not your duty to provide every requisite for war at my command?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then I depend upon you to provide an enemy. What military requisite is more important? Remember the fate of Fismark, and do your duty. We must have a war. That is what I have come here for, and I do not propose to be disappointed. We must have a punitive expedition at once. What are my engagements for to-morrow?"

"Your Majesty's mustache artist is coming at 5:30," replied the count, looking at a memorandum. "Breakfast at 6—inspection of infantry at 6:30—naval maneuvres at 8—reception of our officers at 10:30—reception of foreign officers at 11:30—reception of civilians at 12—luncheon at 12:30—photographer from 1 to 3. We have made no appointments after 3, Your Majesty."

"Then put down the punitive expedition for 3:15," said the war lord, twisting his mustache in front of his eyes. "I propose to have this whole nation kow-tow before me in unison before I leave their miserable land. Take the necessary measures at once for the ceremony. Now I am going to call out the whole garrison and see if they are kept in readiness. You may go, and send me an aide-de-camp. You understand that you must find me an enemy on whom I can wreak vengeance for all these wrongs."

"I understand, Your Majesty," said the count, bending low before him. "I accept this Gospel of Your Majesty's most blessed Person," and he took his leave.

The expedition did not start promptly at 3:15, for unexpected complications arose. The other powers wanted to send out punitive expeditions too, and they sought to have it established that the Porsslanese laugh was directed against all the fleets as well as against the Emperor. A judicious distribution of decorations persuaded all the armies to drop this pretension except the Anglian, and it was finally arranged that the Tutonian and Anglian armies should cooperate and take the field together under the Emperor's immediate command. A week had elapsed before this force was prepared, but it finally started out, General Fawlorn commanding the Anglian contingent.

Sam, who was still only convalescent and who had been assigned some duties connected with forwarding despatches which left him a great deal of leisure, looked with envious eyes upon the departing host. He had never seen anything like the magnificence of the uniforms of the Emperor's staff. He envied them their gilt and stars, and he envied them the prospect of winning the great battles which Balderdash had promised them. They marched at once upon a fortified town in which a large force of Fencers were reported to be established. They besieged it for six days according to all the rules of the Tutonian manual, and finally entered it with great precautions, and found it absolutely empty. At one village a regiment of Anglian Asiatics cut to pieces a hundred natives who were alleged to be Fencers, but it transpired afterward that none of them were armed. Balderdash was frightened half to death, expecting his imperial master to protest against the lack of opposition, but, strange to say, he took it very well and delivered orations on all occasions extolling the prowess of his troops in putting to flight the hordes of a vast empire. This campaign lasted a month, and the expedition finally returned to the port and was received with all the marks of glory that Tutonian officialism could command. The Emperor at once cabled to several kings and all his relations that Providence had graciously preserved him in the midst of great dangers and brought his enterprise to a successful termination.

"They may be great soldiers," said Cleary one day to Sam, "but they don't understand the newspaper business. The Emperor has a natural talent for advertising, but it hasn't been properly cultivated. They oughtn't to have let it leak out that there wasn't even a battle. Why, Taffy says he could go from one end of the Empire to the other with a squadron of cavalry! As for me, I shouldn't mind trying it without the cavalry. When they did kill any people, it was like killing pheasants at one of his famous battues. I wonder he wasn't photographed in the middle of a pile of them, the way he is when he goes shooting at home. Perhaps he'll get up some sport here in a big hen-coop. I'll suggest it to Balderdash."

Sam refused to think ill of the great war-lord, and embraced every opportunity to see him. He had been formally presented to him at a reception of officers, but there was a crowd present, and Sam did not expect him to recognize him again. On one occasion Sam happened to be standing in the street when the Emperor, accompanied by some of his officers, came past on foot. Sam stood on one side and saluted. To his surprise the Emperor stopped and beckoned to him. Sam came forward, bowing, blushing, and stammering.

"I am glad to see an officer of your country here, General," said His Majesty. "May I ask your name? Ah, Jinks! I have heard your name before. What do you think of expansion, General?"

"I beg Your Majesty's pardon," said Sam, "but I do not think. I obey orders."

The Emperor gave an exclamation of surprise and delight.

"Hear that, gentlemen," said he in his own language, turning to his officers. "He does not think; he obeys orders! There is a model for you. There is a motto for you to learn. God has given you an Emperor to think for you. Our friend here, with only a President to fall back on, has perceived the truth that a soldier must not think. He thinks at his peril. General," he added in English, "you have given my army a lesson to-day which they will never forget. It will give me pleasure to decorate you with the Green Cockatoo, third class."

Sam began to stammer something.

"Oh, yes, I remember. Your Government does not allow you to receive it. If that restriction is ever removed, let me be informed," and the Emperor passed on, while Sam determined to write to his uncle and have this miserable civilian law changed. It so happened that there was a great dearth of news at this time, and Cleary made the most of this episode. It did almost as much to make General Jinks famous as anything that he had done before, and he was widely advertised at home as the officer who had astounded the Emperor by his wisdom and given a lesson to the finest army in the world.



"Sam, your luck never gives out," said Cleary. "They'll make you a major-general, I expect, now."

"I should rather like to have the thanks of Congress," answered Sam, as if that were a mere bagatelle. This conversation occurred in a restaurant. A young officer was sitting alone at the next table, and he gave his order to the waiter in a high, penetrating voice.

"Bless my soul! if that isn't Clark," cried Cleary. "See, he's a second lieutenant still. Let's ask him over to our table."

"Go ahead," said Sam, "but don't say anything about East Point."

Cleary invited him over as a fellow countryman, and the three men dined together, never once saying anything to denote that they had met before. Whether Clark noticed that Cleary was rather persistent in offering him the red pepper for every course, it was impossible to determine.

It was generally supposed that the Emperor had done all that could be done in Porsslania, but those who believed this, knew little of the resources of the first soldier of Christendom. Even Count von Balderdash was ignorant of the card which his master had determined to play in view of all mankind.

"Balderdash," said he one night, as the poor count sat trying to repress his yawns and longing for bed,—"Balderdash, we have shown the heathen here what we can do. We have exacted vengeance from them. Now I wish to show to the civilized world, and especially to their armies here, that we have the best army, the best discipline, the greatest power on earth, and the bravest Christians in our ranks. I have not told you yet what I propose to do, but the time has come to go ahead with it. In our vessel, the Eagle, which we brought with us, there are confined thirty persons convicted at home of the frightful crime of lese-majesty, a crime which shows that the criminal is atheistic, anarchistic, and unfit to live. I had them selected among those who have near relations here in the army. They all have either sons, brothers, or fathers enlisted here. Of course at home our wretched parliamentary system would make it inadvisable to have them executed. Here there is no such difficulty. You have often heard me at the annual swearing in of recruits tell them that they are now my children and must do what I say, even if I should order them to shoot down their own parents. I wish to show the world that this is so, and that my soldiers believe it and will act upon it. Such an army will inspire terror indeed. Most of the prisoners are men, but I have included among them two or three of the most abandoned women, who have been imprisoned for criticizing my sacred person. You approve of my plan?"

"I approve of all that Your Majesty ever suggests."

"Of course it makes no difference whether you do or not, but I wish you to have the prisoners brought ashore. You must seek out their relatives among the troops, but do not let them know why. Then fix the execution for some day next week, and have a general parade of all the troops on that occasion."

The Emperor's secret was well kept, and, except that a special parade was to be held, no one knew what the object was. A glittering array of soldiers met the war-lord's eyes when he entered the public square where the army was drawn up. In pursuance of his orders the enlisted men who were related to the prisoners were alined in front of the center with a captain in command of them. The Emperor directed his horse to the spot and addressed the whole army, applying his remarks particularly, however, to the detail immediately before him.

"My children," said he, "when you took the oath of allegiance as my soldiers you became members of my family, and it became your solemn duty to do my bidding, whatever that bidding might be. My word became for you the Word of God. You gave your consciences into my keeping, knowing that God had commissioned me to relieve you of that responsibility. From that moment it was your aim to become perfect soldiers, with your minds and consciences deposited in my hands for safe-keeping. From that day forth you no longer had minds nor consciences—your whole duty was summed up in the obligation to obey orders. That is the soldier's only duty. And I know, my children, that you are perfect soldiers and that you stand ever ready to do that duty. Soldiers in other armies may occasionally forget their calling and indulge in the forbidden fruits of reason and conscience, but the Tutonian soldier never! We all know this. For us no proof is necessary. But I wish to demonstrate the fact to the world. I have brought over with me across the sea certain of your relations who have been guilty of the unparalleled crime of lese-majesty. I have determined that they deserve death, and that you shall carry out the execution. I have so arranged it that each of the condemned shall be shot by his nearest relation, be it father, son, or brother. You will show the world that you are ready, nay, proud to carry out these my commands. I congratulate you on being selected for this noble and patriotic task. You are now before the footlights at the center of the world's stage. Remember that the eyes of all mankind are upon you and that you are my children. Field-marshal, carry out my orders!"

Count von Balderdash gave some orders in an undertone; the troops opened on the left, and disclosed a row of prisoners, including several women, standing bound and blindfolded against a wall, each one at a distance of several yards from his neighbor. The captain ordered the detail into position, gave the necessary orders to load, aim, and fire, and the condemned men and women fell to the ground, each one pierced by the bullet of his or her near relation.

The great concourse, composed largely of soldiers of the various foreign armies (for most of them had now been withdrawn from the Capital and Gin-Sin), looked on with wonder at this spectacle. Sam, who was standing with the inventor Cope, scanned the faces of the executioners with care, and was unable to detect the slightest sign of emotion in them. They had not been prepared in the least for the ordeal; they did not even know that their relations had been brought from home, and yet they did their duty as soldiers without changing the stolid expression of their faces.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" he said to Cope. "These are indeed perfect soldiers. Why, they move like clockwork, like marvelous machines. And what a remarkable man the Emperor is—without question the first soldier of his time and of all time. Was there ever anything like it?"

"Never," answered the inventor.

Sam walked back to his lodgings alone. He wished to think, and purposely avoided company. He did not notice the soldiers in the streets, nor the natives in their round, pointed straw hats. He ran into a man carrying water in two buckets hung from the ends of a pole balanced on his shoulders, and nearly upset his load. He started back and collided with a native woman with a baby tied to her back. When he reached his house, he sat down in an easy-chair in his bedroom and thought and thought and thought. For some hours his mind was filled with unmixed admiration for the Emperor and his army. He felt like an artist who had just seen a new masterpiece that surpassed all the achievements of the ages, or a musician who had listened to a new symphony that summed up and transcended all that had ever gone before. Again and again he pictured to himself the great war-lord in his helmet and white plume, explaining so eloquently and admirably the duties of a soldier, and then his soldiers obeying his orders as if their service were a religion to them, as indeed it was. It grew dark, but Sam did not heed the darkness. Dinner-time came and went, but he was in a region far above such vulgar bodily needs.

"Oh, if we only had an emperor," he thought,—"and such an emperor! Why was I not born a Tutonian?"

This was an unpatriotic thought, and Sam was ashamed of it. Yet it was true, he would gladly have found himself one of His Majesty's subjects and a member of his incomparable army. Then he recalled his memorable interview with the Emperor, and rejoiced in the remembrance that he had deserved and received his commendation. He tried to imagine how it would feel to be one of his officers, or even one of his privates. If he had been selected as one of the squad to show the perfection of their discipline, how gladly he would have taken his place in line with the rest! He would have obeyed without flinching, he was sure of it. He put himself in the place of one of the squad. He is ordered to take his position opposite one of the condemned. He looks and sees that it is his Uncle George. Would he obey the order to shoot? Most certainly. The musket goes off and his uncle falls. He goes through the list of his friends and relations. He does not quite like to shoot the girls, but he does it. It is his duty. His commander-in-chief, who represents his Creator, has ordered it. He can rely implicitly on his wisdom. Then he thinks of Cleary. Yes, he would shoot Cleary down without hesitation. And then comes the turn of his father and mother. He has no trouble with the former, for he is sure that his father as a man must understand his feelings, and he sees a smile of approval on his face as he, too, falls prostrate. With his mother it is more difficult. There had not been much sympathy between them in recent years, yet he recalled his early boyhood on the farm, and it went against him to aim his piece at her. But after all it was his duty, and with an inaudible sigh he pulled the trigger. It was done. No one could have noticed his reluctance. It was quite likely that some of the soldiers that afternoon felt as much compunction as that. But as Sam went over all this long list of tests and passed them successfully, he felt, almost unconsciously, that he was coming to a precipice. His sense of happiness had left him, and he began to dread the end of his cogitations. There was a trial in store that he was afraid of facing. In order to postpone it he went over all his friends and relations again, and added mere acquaintances to the list. He busied himself in this way for an hour or two, but at last the final question forced itself upon him and insisted upon an answer. Would he be willing to shoot Marian under orders? It was with misgivings that he began to imagine this episode. As before, he marched to his place and lifted his rifle to aim. He sees before him the figure which had been haunting his dreams ever since he left East Point. She is bound; a handkerchief is tied over her eyes, but he sees the mouth and longs to kiss it. He has a strong impulse to run forward and throw his arms around her. The command "Fire!" is given, but—he does not shoot. He can not. He has disobeyed orders! He, the man whose one aim in life has been to become a perfect soldier, who only just now was considering himself fit to be a soldier of the war-lord, had disobeyed orders; he had shown himself a mutineer, a deserter, a traitor; he had lost his patriotism and loyalty; he had dishonored the flag; he had trampled under foot all the gods that he had worshiped now for many years. He had flatly broken the only code of morals that he knew—he was a coward, a hypocrite, a mere civilian, masquerading in the uniform of an officer! Sam buried his face in his hands and the tears trickled down through his fingers. Then he sprang up and walked to and fro for a long time. At last he took Marian's photograph from his pocket and put it on his dressing-table. He must be a man. He must hold true to his faith. He screwed up his courage and went through the forms of the afternoon in his room dimly lighted by lanterns in the street. He stood up in the line before the Emperor, and again listened to his inspiring speech. Now he felt sure that he would not fail. He placed himself opposite the photograph when the order was given. He raised an imaginary gun and aimed with assurance—but just then his eye fell upon the face which he could barely distinguish. He saw Marian again as she had been when he bade her farewell. True, she was as much a believer in the military scheme of life as he was, but he knew by instinct that she would draw the line somewhere. She was not created to be a martyr to her faith. The order "Fire!" came, but Sam, instead of obeying, threw down his musket and ran forward, seized the photograph and kissed it. He looked up, half expecting to see a crowd of spectators eying him with derision. He cast himself upon his bed with his clothes on and tossed about for a long time, until at last sleep came to his relief.

When he awoke in the morning the sun had long been up. In the first moments of waking and before he opened his eyes, he could not recall what it was that was troubling him. Suddenly the whole situation came back to him, tenfold clearer than before. He saw at once beyond all possibility of contradiction that he could not shoot Marian, no matter who ordered him to do it; that for him the ideal of a perfect soldier was altogether unattainable, and that he was obliged to admit to himself that his entire life was a failure. The public might praise and acclaim him, but he was essentially a fraud and could never secure his own approval.



CHAPTER XIV

Home Again



When Sam got up and began to undress to take his bath, his head swam so that he was obliged to lie down again. He tried again two or three times, but always with the same result, and finally he rang for a servant and sent for an army surgeon. The doctor came at once, took his temperature with a thermometer, and, after examining him, pronounced that he had a bad attack of fever, probably typhoid. He advised him to go to the hospital, and before noon Sam found himself comfortably installed in a hospital bed, screened off by a movable partition from a ward of fever patients. The doctor's surmise proved to be correct, and for weeks he was dangerously ill, much of the time being delirious. He suffered once or twice also from relapses, and showed very little recuperative force when the fever finally left him. Meanwhile he was very low-spirited. The idea preyed upon his mind that he was no soldier and could never be one, and he felt that the resulting depression had a great deal to do with his protracted illness. Cleary was assiduous in his attentions, but, intimate as they were, Sam could never bring himself to confess his culpable weakness to him. As he became convalescent he had other visitors, and among them Mr. Cope, the inventor of explosives and artillery.

"I am at work at a great invention which I shall owe partly to you and partly to the Emperor," said he on one occasion. "Do you remember that at that execution the Emperor said that the perfect soldier has no conscience or reason?" Sam winced. "And then you called my attention to the fact that the men performed their part like machines. That set me thinking. I am always on the lookout for suggestions, and there was one ready-made. Do you see? Why shouldn't a machine be made to take the place of a soldier? A great idea, isn't it? Now you see we've already done something in that line. A torpedo is simply an iron soldier that swims under water and needs no breath, and does as he is told. Think how absurd it is in battle to have a field-battery come up under fire at a gallop! They swing round, unlimber, load, and fire, then harness again, swing round again, and off they are. Meanwhile perhaps half the men and horses have been killed. Wouldn't it be better to have the whole battery a machine, instead of only the guns? The general could stay behind out of range, as he does to-day, and direct the whole thing with an electric battery and a telescope. It is not a difficult matter when you once accept the principle, and the principle can be extended to cavalry and infantry just as well. It will be a great thing for the nations that are best at mechanics, and that means you and us."

"I don't see," said Sam, "how you can get on without the courage of brave men."

"Courage! Why, what is more courageous than a piece of steel? It wouldn't be easy to frighten it. And it is just so with all soldierly qualities. Do you want obedience? What is more obedient than a machine? I suppose you admit that a human soldier may disobey orders sometimes."

"Perhaps," said Sam, blushing uneasily.

"You may be sure that a steel soldier won't unless he is disabled, and a human soldier may be disabled too. Then the Emperor said a soldier should not reason. There's no danger of a steel soldier trying that.

"'Theirs not to reason why. Theirs but to do and die.'

"Why, the Light Brigade at Balaklava won't be in it with them. And it's just the same with regard to conscience. A piece of steel has no conscience. What we want is a machine soldier. A soldier must be obedient, and he must be without fear, conscience, or a mind of his own. In all these respects a machine can surpass a man. Why, you yourself, in praising those Tutonian soldiers, said that they went like clockwork. That's the highest military praise possible."

Sam was much disturbed by this conversation. Mr. Cope went on to tell how his Government had spent L23,000 to fire a single shot and test one of his new projectiles, but Sam was not interested. Then the inventor began to rally him about the lack of interest of soldiers in the inventions which they used.

"If you had had to depend on yourselves for inventions," he said, "you would still be fighting with cross-bows, or perhaps more likely with your teeth and finger-nails. No soldier ever invented anything. We inventors are the real military men."

At last Sam's unconscious tormentor took his departure, and the invalid rang for the hospital orderly so that he might tell him not to let him in again. To his surprise a new orderly appeared, a negro whose face was strangely familiar.

"What is it, sah?" he said.

"Is that you, Mose?" cried Sam. "Why, it's almost as good as being at home again."

"Bress my soul, Massa Jinks—I mean General, have you been a-hurtin' yourself again?" and the man chuckled to himself till his whole body shook. Under Mose's care Sam made more rapid progress and soon was able to go out in a sedan-chair, borne by three men, like a mandarin. The winter passed away and spring was about to set in. There was no prospect of active service in Porsslania, the Powers being unable to agree upon any policy. The Emperor had already gone home, and the various armies were much reduced in strength. Cleary had been ordered to return by his newspaper, and had taken passage in a passenger steamer for the first of May.

"Why can't you come with me?" he said to Sam. "You're entitled to a leave of absence, and when you get to Whoppington you can apply for some other berth."

Sam followed this wise advice and obtained a furlough of three months, and on the day fixed for sailing they embarked for home.

Sam was still an invalid, but the voyage did him a great deal of good, and before they had been a week at sea he began to look quite like his old self. There were few passengers who interested him, but he became acquainted with one man of note, a Porsslanese literatus, who was attached to the legation at Whoppington, and sat on the other side of the captain of the steamer at meals. This gentleman, who bore the name of Chung Tu, was greatly interested in military matters and listened to Sam's accounts by the hour. The night before their arrival at St. Kisco, the regular dinner was, as usual, converted into a banquet, and a band was improvised for the occasion. At the close of dinner the martial hymns of all nations were played, ending with "Yankee Doodle." It was impossible to resist the impulse to laugh as this national jig brought up the rear, and Sam was much displeased that the foreigners on board, and there were many, should have laughed at his country. When he went up on deck he found Cleary conversing with Chung Tu, and he placed his steamer-chair beside theirs and joined the conversation.

"It's a great pity," said he, "that we have such a national air as 'Yankee Doodle.' It holds us up to ridicule."

"Do you think so?" answered Chung Tu, who spoke English perfectly. "That depends upon the point of view. You see you take the military point of view. We Porsslanese are not a military nation. We do not think much of armies. We do not try to spread our territory by force, and we never encroach on our neighbors' land, altho we are really overcrowded. Perhaps that is the reason people dislike us. We are not much of an empire either. We have very little central authority, and only a handful of officials. We have free speech, and even the Emperor can be freely criticized without fear. We have no conscription, and no one need carry a passport, as they have to in some countries. We are almost a democracy. We have no exclusive hereditary rank. Any one may become a mandarin if he learns enough to deserve it. We only wanted to be left alone without armies, and we did not want to buy guns and ships. That is all. We are almost a democracy, and that is the reason that I have always studied your history with care. I have studied your state papers and your hymns. I have made a special study of them, and I have come to the opposite conclusion from you as to 'Yankee Doodle.' It seems to me to be the work of a great poet and prophet."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

"Let us consider it seriously," said Chung Tu. "Have you a copy of it?"

"No," said Sam, laughing.

"Then please repeat it for us, and I will write it down."

Sam began to recite, but he found it difficult to keep his face straight:

"'Yankee Doodle went to town, Riding on a pony. He stuck a feather in his crown And called him macaroni.'"

"That is not like my version," said the attache, pulling a piece of paper from the pocket of his silk jacket. "Here is mine," and he read it solemnly and with emphasis:

"'Yankee Doodle came to town, A-riding on a pony. He stuck a feather in his cap And called it macaroni.'

"Which reading is correct?" he asked of Cleary.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Cleary, laughing.

"How careless you are of your country's literature! In Porsslania we would carefully guard the sayings of our ancestors and preserve them from alteration. You have what you call the 'higher criticism.' You should direct it to the correction of this most important poem. I have studied the matter as carefully and accurately as a foreigner can, and I am satisfied that my version is the most authentic. Come now, let us study it. Take the first two lines:

"'Yankee Doodle came to town A-riding on a pony.'

"There is nothing difficult in that. You may say that the name is a strange one, and I admit that 'Doodle' is a curious surname, but 'Yang Kee' is a perfectly reasonable one from a Porsslanese point of view, and leads me to suppose that the wisdom contained in this poem came originally from our wise men. Perhaps the name is put there as an indication of the fact. However, let us accept the name. The hero came to town riding on a pony. That was a very sensible thing to do. Remember that those lines were written long before the discovery of railways or tram-cars or bicycles or automobiles. You may say that he might have taken a carriage or one of your buggies, but you forget that the roads were exceedingly bad in those days, as bad as our roads near the Imperial City, and it would have been dangerous perhaps to attempt the journey in a vehicle of any kind. In riding to town on a pony, then, he was acting like a rational man. But let us read the rest of the verse:

"'He stuck a feather in his cap And called it macaroni.'

"For some reason or other which is not revealed, he puts a feather in his cap, and immediately he begins to act irrationally and to use language so absurd that the reading itself has become doubtful. What is the meaning of this? A man whose conduct has always been reasonable and unexceptionable, suddenly adopts the language of a lunatic. What does it mean? You have sung this verse for a century and more, and you have never taken the trouble to seek for the meaning."

Sam and Cleary did not attempt to defend their neglect.

"It is clear to me," proceeded the philosopher, "it is very clear to me that it is an allegory. What is the feather which he puts in his cap? It is the most conspicuous feature of the military uniform, the plume, the pompon, which marks all kinds of military dress-hats. When he speaks of his hero as having assumed the feather, he means that he has donned the uniform of a soldier. He has come to town, in other words, to enlist. Then behold the transformation! He begins at once to act irrationally. The whole epic paints in never-fading colors the disastrous effect upon the intellect of putting on soldier-clothes. You will pardon me, my friends, if I speak thus plainly, but I must open to you the hidden wisdom of your own country."

Sam smiled. The idea of taking offense at any nonsense which an ignorant pagan should say was quite beneath him.

"But that is not all. The style of the language and of the music is most noteworthy. It is highly comical, and its object evidently is to provoke a laugh, and at dinner this evening we saw that its object was attained. All the other martial hymns to which we listened were grave, ponderous compositions from which the element of humor was rigidly excluded. It was left for the author of 'Yang Kee' to uncover the ludicrous character of militarism—he has virtually committed your nation to it. He was a genius of marvelous insight. He saw clearly then what but few of your fellow citizens are even now aware of, that there is nothing more comical than a soldier. I am convinced that he was a Porsslanese who had the good fortune to sow in your literature the seed of truth. You think that as a nation you have a sense of humor. I have studied your humorous literature. You laugh at mothers-in-law and messenger-boys and domestic servants, and many other objects which are altogether serious and have no element of humor in them, and at the same time you are blind to the most absurd of spectacles, the man who dresses up in feathers and gold lace and thinks it is honorable to do nothing for years but wait for a pretext to kill somebody," and Chung Tu leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"It is we who have the sense of humor," he added. "When our common people laughed at the Emperor in his uniforms, they showed the same sound sense that appears in 'Yang Kee.' I thank you, my dear friends, for listening to me so kindly and without anger, but I hope to preach these ideas to your people, and as I take my text from your national hymn, they must listen to me. Then there is another common expression among you which shows, as so many proverbs do, the fundamental truth. When a story is incredible you say 'Tell that to the marines,' signifying that only a marine would be stupid enough to believe it. Now what is a marine? As the Anglian poet says, he is 'soldier and sailor too,' in other words, he epitomizes the army and navy. It is the military man who is foolish enough to believe anything and who keeps alive the most absurd superstitions and customs. The ancient Greeks cast a side-light on this truth, for their word for private soldier was 'idiot.' And on account of this strange stupidity of soldiers, things that would be disgraceful in private life become glorious in war. Their one virtue is obedience, unqualified by any of the balancing virtues, and they wear liveries to show that they are servile. And then the foolish things they try to do! You are familiar with the Peace Conference—generals and admirals spending weeks in uniform with swords at their sides to determine how to stop fighting, as if there were anything to do but to stop! I believe they had the grace to turn the war pictures in the conference room to the wall. But fancy sending butchers to a conference in the interests of vegetarianism! Of course nothing was done or could be done there. And the Emperor in his uniform, drunk with militarism, wanted us—all our nation—wanted me—to kow-tow before him as if he were a god! But he did not get what he wanted from us. His own people may grovel before him, but we will not. Oh, these soldiers, these soldiers! You look down on your hangmen and butchers. We look down on our men-butchers, the soldiers, in the same way. We have soldiers just as you have police, but it is a low calling with us, and most people would be ashamed to have a soldier in the family. Pardon me, my dear sirs. Perhaps I have spoken too plainly. I mean nothing personal, but when I think of these wars, I can not control my tongue. Good-night."

So saying, the attache gathered up his robes and went below.

"Queer chap," said Sam. "He must be crazy."

"We've treated them rather badly, tho," said Cleary. "I'm glad Taffy hasn't had any executions, but our minister and all the rest have been insisting on executions of their big people, and no one talks of executing any of ours, altho they have suffered ten times as much as we have."

"You forget how the affair began," said Sam. "Suppose the Porsslanese had sent us missionaries to teach us their religion, and these missionaries had gradually got possession of land and also some local power of governing, and then we had ruthlessly murdered some of them and they had seized all our ports for the purpose of benefiting us, do you suppose that we would have risen like those miserable Fencers and massacred anybody? It is inconceivable. They have the strangest aversion to foreigners too."

"Some of them haven't," said Cleary. "Chung Tu is a friendly old soul, if he is cracked. He says he believes the Powers have been turned loose on his country to punish them for having invented gunpowder. He laughs at Cope's inventions. He says his people set the fashion, and then wisely stopped when they found that such inventions did more harm than good. I think they have a right to complain of us. Why, there's one of our soldiers in the steerage with seventeen of their pigtails with the scalps still fastened to them as trophies! Old Chung says our ribbons and decorations are the equivalent of the scalps dangling at a savage's belt. I didn't tell him we had the genuine article. But, come, you had better turn in. You'll have a hard day to-morrow. I've advertised your coming for all I was worth, and if they don't give you a send-off at St. Kisco, it isn't my fault. I'm glad you're well enough to stand it."

"I'm not as well as I look," said Sam. "I've lost all my nerve. I'm even worrying a little about all my loot in those cases in the hold. It sometimes seems that I oughtn't to have taken it."

"What!" cried Cleary. "Well, you are getting squeamish! After all the fellows you've killed or had killed, I shouldn't mind an ornament or two."

"Killing is a soldier's main business," said Sam. "Oh, well, I suppose looting is, too. I won't think anything more about it. Good-night."

While Sam and his friend were conversing on deck, another conversation which was to have a portentous effect upon the former's destiny was taking place in the upper corridor of the Peckham Young Ladies' Seminary at St. Kisco.

"He's perfectly lovely," said a young lady, standing barefoot before her door in her night-dress to a group of young ladies similarly attired. "I've got his photograph. And I'm not just going to stand still and see him pass. It's all very well to have the school drawn up in line on the wharf—that's better than nothing—but I want something more, and I'm going to have it."

"What will you do, Sally?" they all cried.

"I'm going to kiss him—there!" said she.

"Oh, Sally!"

"Yes, I will too."

"I believe she will if she says so," said one of the girls. "She won't stop at anything. Well, Sally Watson, if you kiss him, I will to."

"And I!" "And I!" exclaimed the others; but at that moment a step was heard on the stairs, and the Peckham young ladies sought their beds and pretended very hard to be asleep, altho their hearts were thumping against their ribs at the mere thought of their daring resolution.

It was at ten o'clock the next morning that the steamer came alongside the wharf. The city was in gala dress and flags waved everywhere. The day was observed almost as a holiday, and many schools permitted their pupils to take part in the procession which awaited the arrival of Captain Jinks, as Sam was now commonly known in his native land. A reception was arranged for him at the City Hall, and the Mayor came down to the steamer in a carriage with four horses to escort him thither. From the deck Sam could see a banner stretched across the street, on which was an inscription to the "Hero of San Diego, the Subduer of the Moritos, the Capturer of Gomaldo, the Conqueror of the Great White Temple, and the Friend and Instructor of the Emperor." A few months before, Sam would have enjoyed this display without alloy, but now his health was really shattered, and in the bottom of his heart he felt that he was unworthy of it all, for he was not the perfect soldier he had believed he was, and under his uniform beat the heart of a vulgar civilian. His military instincts had their limit; his obedience could only be relied upon under certain circumstances. He was a mere amateur, and had no claim to rank as a military hero at all.

A swarm of reporters settled down upon General Jinks as soon as they could get on board, insisting upon having his opinion as to the growth of the city since he had seen it, the superiority of its climate to that of any part of the world, and the beauty of its women. Sam answered all these questions satisfactorily, and surrendered himself to the committee of citizens who had come on deck to welcome him. His luggage was passed without delay by the Custom House officials, and he was conducted down the wharf toward the carriage which awaited him. With true chivalry young ladies' schools had been given the best positions on the wharf, and Sam soon found himself passing through a double row of pretty girls. He could hear such remarks as this:

"Isn't he good-looking!"

"What a lovely uniform!"

"Hasn't he got a fascinating limp!"

"How pale he is!"

"He does look just like a hero."

Sam flushed slightly at these comments, but suddenly, before he had time to collect his thoughts, a slight form sprang forward from the left and an inviting face presented itself to his, and with the words, "May I, please?" a hearty kiss was planted on his lips. Sam had no time to decline, if he had wished to. A murmur of surprise and delight arose from the crowd, and in another moment another damsel rushed upon him, and then another and another. Before long he was the center of a throng of elbowing young ladies of all kinds, fair, plain, and indifferent, all bent upon giving him a kiss. Sam had indeed lost his nerve; for the first time in his life he capitulated absolutely and let the attacking party work its sweet will. It was with great difficulty that he was rescued by the reception committee and finally seated next to the Mayor in the landau.

"What a lot of cab-drivers you have there on the wharf!" said Sam to the Mayor, after their first greetings. "I never saw so many. Hear them crying out to the passengers coming ashore!"

"They're not cab-drivers," he answered. "They're pension agents. They're not crying 'Want a cab?' but 'Want a pension?'"

"So they are," said Sam. "What is that tune the young ladies are beginning to sing?"

"Don't you know?" said the Mayor, laughing. "It's 'Captain Jinks.' You'll know it well enough before you are here long. Listen."

Sam listened and heard sung for the first time lines that were to be imprinted upon his tympanum until they became a torture:

"I'm Captain Jinks of the Cubapines, The pink of human war-machines, Who teaches emperors, kings, and queens The way to run an army."

The news of the kissing reached the City Hall before the procession, and when he alighted there Sam had to kiss an immense number of women who were determined not to be outdone by their sisters at the wharf, while the whole crowd sang "Captain Jinks" in a frenzy of enthusiasm. The reception accorded to Sam at St. Kisco was so elaborate, and the arrangements made to do him honor were so extended, that he was obliged to stay there for several days. Meanwhile the news of his arrival and of his gallantry in kissing his countrywomen, young and old, spread all over the land and took hold of the popular imagination. Invitations to visit various cities on his way across the Continent began to come in, and everywhere Sam was acclaimed as the hero and idol of the people.

"It's great, it's great, old man!" cried Cleary. "Why, that kissing business is worth a dozen victories! The people here say that no general or admiral has had such a send-off in St. Kisco. Look at to-day's papers! Thirteen places have petitioned to have their post-offices named after you. There will be Jinksvilles and Jinkstowns everywhere, and one is called Samjinks. Then they're naming their babies after you like wildfire. Samuela is becoming a common girl's name, and one chap has called his girl Samjinksina. All the girls are practising the Jinks limp, too. I saw one huge picture of you painted on the dead side of a house. It was an ad. of the 'Captain Jinks 5-cent Cigar.' That's the limit of a man's ambition, I should say. And now they're beginning to nominate you for President. I'm going to try to work that up. I'm sending a despatch to The Lyre this morning. If they take it up, we can put it through. The Republicrats hold their convention at St. Lewis next month, and they've been looking around for a military candidate, and you're just the thing. Every woman in the country will be for you. They won't dare to put up a candidate against you. You'll just have a walk-over. That song, 'Captain Jinks,' will do it alone. Everybody is singing it."

"I thought I was too young," said Sam. "Isn't there an age limit?"

"Not a bit of it. They abolished that when they amended the Constitution and made the President's term six years, and made him ineligible for reelection."

"I'd rather have a military position," said Sam. "I'd rather be general of the army. But I've lost my nerve—I'm not well; and perhaps it's just as well that I should take a civilian position."

"Civilian position! Nonsense! The President is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and the marines, too, for that matter."

"But he hasn't a uniform," said Sam sorrowfully. "And as for all this kissing, I'm sick of it. It tires me to death, and I don't know what Marian will think of it. I've written to explain that I can't help it, but she will see the reports first in the papers and she may not like it at all."

"Oh, she's a sensible woman," said Cleary. "She will understand a political and military necessity. She won't mind."



CHAPTER XV

Politics



But Marian did mind, and for once Cleary was mistaken. She was delighted at the prominence which Sam had achieved, and saw him mentioned as a candidate for President with pride and gratification, but she did not see how that excused his promiscuous osculation of the female population of the country, and she determined that it should cease. She wrote to him frequently and decidedly on the subject, and he reported her protests to Cleary, who absolutely refused to allow them.

"It won't do," said he, as they discussed the subject at a hotel in a small city on their line of progress. "This kissing is your strong point. The Lyre is backing you up on the strength of it. So is the Benevolent Assimilation Trust, Limited. In every city and town the girls have turned out, and you've captured them hands down. If you stop now it will upset the whole business. The Convention delegates are coming out for you by the dozen. Our committee is working it up so that it will be nearly unanimous. There won't be another serious candidate, and I doubt if they put anybody up against you when you're nominated. You're as good as President now, but you must go on kissing. That's all there is of it."

Sam wrote to Marian rehearsing these arguments, and he got Cleary to write too, but the letters had no effect. At last he received a telegram from her announcing her intention of meeting him at St. Lewis. She reached that city before him and was present at the station when he arrived, altho he did not know it, and from a good point of vantage she saw him kissing the young ladies of that city by wholesale to an accompaniment of "Captain Jinks." It was more than she could stand, and when she joined her fiance at the hotel the meeting was very different from the one he had so often pictured to himself. It was a stormy scene, intermixed with tender episodes, but she gave it as her ultimatum that the kissing must cease forthwith, and, in order to give a good reason for it, she insisted that they be married at once. Sam was willing to take this course, and Cleary was called into their counsels. At first he bitterly opposed the project, but Marian's blandishments finally succeeded, and she gained him as an ally. He was sent as an emissary to the campaign committee and presented the case as strongly as he could for her. The proposition really seemed most plausible. Could anything help the chances of a candidate more than his marriage to a handsome young woman? The committee had doubts on the subject and waited in person on Miss Hunter, but she persuaded them as she had persuaded Cleary, and furthermore convinced them that whether they were persuaded or not the marriage would take place. Marian determined to fix the hour for the next day. She pledged the committee to secrecy, and no word of the proposed wedding got into the papers. At noon a clergyman was called into the hotel, and in Sam's private sitting-room the pair were married with Cleary and a few of the members of the committee as witnesses. Almost before the ceremony was over they could hear the newsboys crying out the tidings of the event.

"It's out of the question to talk about a wedding-tour," said Sam, after the ceremony. "I can't walk in the streets alone without being mobbed, and with Marian we could not keep the clothes on our backs. Just hear them singing 'Captain Jinks' now!"

"Mark my words, dear," said his wife. "You will see when we get the papers to-morrow with the news of our marriage, that it has made you more popular than ever. Now send out word to the reporters that you will not do any more public kissing."

In obedience to these orders Cleary, acting as go-between, conveyed the information as gently as he could to the representatives of the press, that as a married man General Jinks expected to be spared the ordeal of embracing all the young ladies of the country.

No one was prepared for the striking effect which this news, coupled with that of the marriage, had upon the newspapers and their readers. The first papers which Sam and his wife saw on the following morning were those of St. Lewis. They expressed sorrow at the fact that Captain Jinks had taken such a resolution when only a handful of the fair women of St. Lewis had had the opportunity of saluting him. Were they less beautiful and attractive than the ladies of St. Kisco who had kissed him to their hearts' content? Marian was visibly annoyed when she saw these articles, but she advised her husband to wait till they received the papers from other cities. These journals came, but, alas! they went rapidly from bad to worse. The Eastern papers with scarcely an exception took up the strain of those of St. Lewis. Why did Captain Jinks discriminate against the women of the East? He had kissed the whole West. Probably he had also kissed all the women of the Cubapines and Porsslania. It was only the women of the East that he could not find heart to salute in the same way. Here was a hero indeed, who insulted one-half of his own nation! It might have been expected that the Western press would have come to Sam's support, but they did not. They accused him of gross deception in not announcing that he had been from the first engaged to be married. Their young women had been fraudulently induced to kiss lips which had already been monopolized, but which they had been led to believe to be as free as the air of heaven. Black indeed must be the soul of a man who could stoop to such deception! As the days went on the public became more excited and the attacks more ferocious. It was rumored that his fiancee had married him against his will, that she was a virago and a termagant. Would the country be contented to see the Executive Mansion ruled by petticoats, and by those of a hussy at that? What sort of a hero was the man who could be ordered about by a woman and could not call his soul his own? Then they began to overhaul his record. Was he really the hero of San Diego? Was it not the mistakes of Gomaldo which caused his defeat? Was it not true that the boasted subjugation of the Moritos was brought about by the superstitious fear of the savages inspired by the figures tattooed on the captain's body? And the capture of Gomaldo, was it anything but a green-goods game on a large scale? What, too, was the burning of the great White Temple but an act of vandalism? And as for the friendship and praise of the Emperor, who was the Emperor, anyway, but an effete product of an exhausted civilization? Then had not Captain Jinks opposed the promotion of men from the ranks? What sort of a democrat was this? Sam felt these thrusts keenly. He had had no idea of the fickleness of the people, and it was hard to believe that in a single day they had ceased to adore him and begun to revile him; and yet such was the case. Marian was also overcome with mortification, and she heaped reproaches upon him for their forlorn condition. Cleary proved himself to be a stanch friend.

"It's too bad, old man," he said. "It'll blow over, but you'll have to withdraw a while for repairs. The bottom has dropped out of your boom, and of course you can't be a candidate for President. Let's go quietly home. I'll go along with you. The Lyre has had to drop you for the time. Scribblers' has sent back the first article I wrote for you, and they say your name has lost its commercial value. I've seen Jonas. He's here to make sure of a friendly candidate, and he says you're out of the question. He's doing well, I tell you. I asked him how it paid to run a war for half a million a day and get a trade in return of a few millions a year? 'It's the people pay for the war and we get the trade,' said he. He'd like to have you President to help them along, but he says it won't be possible. It's a shame. You'd have run so well, if——Your platform of 'Old Gory, the Army and Navy,' would have swept everything before it. But never mind. We'll try it again some day. I suppose your luck couldn't hold out forever."

"Thanks, my dear Cleary," said Sam, grasping his hand. "You've been a true friend. I don't think it makes much difference. I am a sick man, and I must go home as soon as I can."



CHAPTER XVI

The End



Sam was indeed a sick man, and the journey to the East proved to be a severe strain upon him. Cleary saw that it would be unwise to let him travel alone with his wife, and accordingly he accompanied him to Slowburgh, which was on the way to Homeville. They arrived in the afternoon, and Sam could hardly walk to the carriage which awaited him. He was put to bed as soon as he reached his uncle's house, and on the advice of his uncle's doctor they sent at once to the county town for a trained nurse to take charge of him, for it was out of the question for him to travel farther. There was no train which Cleary could conveniently take that evening to the metropolis, and he accepted the urgent invitation of Congressman Jinks to spend the night. It so happened that it was a gala day for Slowburgh. Four of her soldier sons had returned a few days before from Porsslania and the Cubapines, and this day had been set aside for a great celebration and a mass-meeting at the Methodist church to welcome them. The procession was to take place early in the evening, and after supper Cleary went out alone to watch the proceedings, leaving his friend to the care of his relatives. He took his place on the curbstone of the principal street and was soon conversing with his neighbors on each side, one of whom was our old friend, Mr. Reddy, and the other the young insurance agent whose acquaintance Sam had made at the hotel.

"It's going to be a great show," said the former. "I wish I was spry enough to parade too. It's going to be splendid, but it won't come up to the time we had when I came back from the war. They've kept them four boys drunk three days for nothing, but we was drunk a month."

"They've sobered them down for this evening, I believe," said the young man.

"They've done their best," said Reddy, "and I think they'll go through with it all right. It's a great time for them, but they'll have their pension days all the rest of their lives to remind them of it, four times a year."

"Who are going to take part in the procession?" asked Cleary.

"They're going to have all the military companies and patriotic societies of these parts," answered Reddy, "and then the firemen too of course; but they won't amount to much, for most of them are in the societies, and they'd rather turn out in them."

"What societies are there?" said Cleary.

"Oh, there's the Grandsons of the Revolution and the Genuine Grandsons of the Revolution, and the Daughters of Revolutionary Camp-Followers and the Genuine Daughters, and then the Male Descendants of Second Cousins of Heroes, and the Genuine Male Descendants, and the Connections by Marriage of Colonial Tax-Collectors, and then the Genuine Connections, and a lot of others I can't remember."

"The names seem to go in pairs," said Cleary.

"Well, you see, they always have a fight about something in these military societies, and then they split, and the party that splits away always takes the same name and puts 'Genuine' in front of it. That's the way it is."

"I suppose these societies do a lot of good, don't they?" asked Cleary. "These splits and quarrels remind me of the army. They must spread the military spirit among the people."

"Yes, they do," said the young man. "It's what they call esprit de corps. If fighting is military, they fight and no mistake, and the women fight more than the men. I don't know how many lawsuits they've had. Half of them won't speak to the other half. But they're all united on one thing, I can tell you, and that is in wanting to put down the Cubapinos."

"That they are," cried Reddy. "That's why they call 'em 'Patriotic Societies.' It was our ancestors as fought for freedom that they made the societies for. Our ancestors were patriotic and fought for freedom oncet, and now we're going to be patriotic and stick by the government just like they did."

"Yes, they fought for freedom, that's true. And what are the Cubapinos fighting for?" asked the young man.

"Oh, shucks!" cried Reddy. "I ain't a-going to argher with you. What were we talking about? Oh, yes. We were saying that them societies fight together. They do fight a good deal, that's a fact, and there's no end of trouble in our militia battalion too. They all want to be captain, and they don't get on somehow as well as the fire companies. But still it's a fine thing to see all this military spirit. I didn't see a uniform for years, and now you can't hire a man to dig a ditch who hasn't got a stripe on one leg of his trousers at any rate. Girls like soldiers, I tell you, and they like pensions too. I've just got married myself. My wife is seventeen. Now I've drawed my pension for nearly forty years, and she'll draw it for sixty more if she has any luck; that'll make over a hundred. That's something like. Why, if one of these fellows is twenty now and marries a girl of seventeen when he's ninety, and she lives till she's ninety, they can keep drawing money for a hundred and fifty years, and no mistake. It's better than a savings bank. Here they come!"

The procession had formed round the corner at the other end of the main street, and now the band began to play, and the column could be seen advancing. First the band passed with an escort of small boys running along in the gutter on either side. Then came two carriages containing the heroes, two in each. They held themselves stiffly and took off their hats, and no one would have supposed that they had drunk too much if the fact had not been universally understood by the public. Behind them came a line of other carriages in which were seated the magnates of the town, including the office-holders and the prominent business men. They all had that self-important air which is inseparable from such shows and which denotes that the individual is feeling either like a great man or a fool. Then came the militia battalion, a rather shamefaced lot of young men who seemed to be painfully aware that they were not at all real heroes like the soldiers in the carriages, but merely make-believe imitations. The patriotic societies followed, genuine and non-genuine, resplendent in "insignia," sashes, and badges.

"There's my wife, she's a G.C.M.C.T.C.," said Reddy proudly, pointing out a very plain young woman with gold spectacles. "And here come the Genuine Ancestors of Future Veterans. See that old woman there on the other side? She made all the fuss. You see when anybody wants to get into a society and finds they can't get in they go off and start another. And some people that hadn't any tax collectors or connections or anything, they just got up the 'Ancestors of Future Veterans,' and everybody in town wanted to get into that. And old Miss Blunt there, she wanted to come in too, and she's over seventy, and they said she couldn't be an ancestor nohow, and she said she could and she would, and they voted forty-one to forty against her, and the forty went off and founded the Genuine Ancestors, and they're twice as big as the others now. Hear 'em applaud?"

The old lady walked along with a martial tread, and was loudly cheered as she passed.

"Now we'd better get into the church if we want seats," said the young man, and Cleary followed him, leaving the ancient warrior behind. The church was very crowded and very hot, and Cleary had to sit on a step of the platform, but it was an exhibition of patriotism worth beholding. The band played with great gusto, and the whole audience was at the highest pitch of excitement. The chairman made an address, and Josh Thatcher responded in a few words for himself and his three companions. Then flowers were presented to them, and a little girl recited the "Charge of the Light Brigade," but the main feature of the program was the oration of Dr. Taylor, the pastor of the church. He was famed as an orator not only in his denomination and in the county but in the National Order of Total Abstinence, of which he was a leading light. In his address he welcomed the four heroes back to their hearths and firesides. He thanked them for having conquered so many lands and spread the blessings of civilization and Christianity to the ends of the earth.