guard-house for thirty days on round
steak and tamales. War,' says Willie, 'is great and glorious. I
didn't know you were a coward.'

"'I'm not,' says I. 'If I was, I'd knock some of the pallidness off
of your marble brow. I'm lenient with you,' I says, 'just as I am
with the Spaniards, because you have always reminded me of something
with mushrooms on the side. Why, you little Lady of Shalott,' says I,
'you underdone leader of cotillions, you glassy fashion and moulded
form, you white-pine soldier made in the Cisalpine Alps in Germany
for the late New-Year trade, do you know of whom you are talking
to? We've been in the same social circle,' says I, 'and I've put
up with you because you seemed so meek and self-un-satisfying. I
don't understand why you have so sudden taken a personal interest
in chivalrousness and murder. Your nature's undergone a complete
revelation. Now, how is it?'

"'Well, you wouldn't understand, Ben,' says Willie, giving one of his
refined smiles and turning away.

"'Come back here!' says I, catching him by the tail of his khaki coat.
'You've made me kind of mad, in spite of the aloofness in which I have
heretofore held you. You are out for making a success in this hero
business, and I believe I know what for. You are doing it either
because you are crazy or because you expect to catch some girl by it.
Now, if it's a girl, I've got something here to show you.'

"I wouldn't have done it, but I was plumb mad. I pulled a San
Augustine paper out of my hip-pocket, and showed him an item. It was
a half a column about the marriage of Myra Allison and Joe Granberry.

"Willie laughed, and I saw I hadn't touched him.

"'Oh,' says he, 'everybody knew that was going to happen. I heard
about that a week ago.' And then he gave me the laugh again.

"'All right,' says I. 'Then why do you so recklessly chase the bright
rainbow of fame? Do you expect to be elected President, or do you
belong to a suicide club?'

"And then Captain Sam interferes.

"'You gentlemen quit jawing and go back to your quarters,' says he,
'or I'll have you escorted to the guard-house. Now, scat, both of
you! Before you go, which one of you has got any chewing-tobacco?'

"'We're off, Sam,' says I. 'It's supper-time, anyhow. But what do
you think of what we was talking about? I've noticed you throwing out
a good many grappling-hooks for this here balloon called fame--What's
ambition, anyhow? What does a man risk his life day after