o the shell and the bow.
Come on! The ballroom is calling to us, and I doubt whether we'll
explain to the satisfaction of everybody why we've been away from it so
long. You, too, Harry!"

They rose in a group and went out hastily. Harry was last, and his hand
was on the bolt of the door, preparatory to closing it, when the general
turned to Bathurst and said:

"You've that diagram of ours, haven't you, Bathurst? It's not a thing to
be left lying loose."

"Why, no, sir, I thought you put it in your pocket."

The general laughed.

"You're suffering from astigmatism, Bathurst," he said. "Doubtless it
was Colton whom you saw stowing it away. I think we'd better tear it
into little bits as we have no further use for it."

"But I haven't it, sir," said Colton, a veteran colonel, just recovering
from a wound in the arm. "I supposed of course that one of the others
took it."

An uneasy look appeared in the general's eyes, but it passed in an
instant.

"You have it, Morton?"

"No, sir. Like Bathurst I thought one of the others took it."

"And you, Kitteridge?"

"I did not take it, sir."

"You surely have it, Johnson?"

"No, sir, I was under the impression that you had taken it away with you."

"And you, McCurdy?"

McCurdy shook his head.

"Then Kenton, as you were the last to rise, you certainly have it."

"I was just a looker-on; I did not touch it," said Harry, whose hand was
still on the bolt of the partly opened door.

The general laughed.

"Another case of everybody expecting somebody else to do a thing, and
nobody doing it," he said. "Kenton, go back and take it from the table.
In our absorption we've been singularly forgetful, and that plan must be
destroyed at once."

Harry reentered the room, and in their eagerness all of the officers
followed. Then a simultaneous "Ah!" of dismay burst from them all.
There was nothing on the table. The plan was gone. They looked at one
another, and in the eyes of every one apprehension was growing.

"The window is partly open," said the general, affecting a laugh,
although it had an uneasy note, "and of course it has blown off the
table. We'll surely find it behind the sofa or a chair."

They searched the room eagerly, going over every inch of space, every
possible hiding place, but the plan was not there.

"Perhaps it's in the court," said the general. "It might have fluttered
out there. Raise the sash higher, Kenton. Let nobody make any n