that I've any right to my
boy's company in the first moments that such good news has come to him?
Hal, I'm thinking how you'll look in your new uniforms--_ad interim_.
Will you order a uniform at once?"

"No; I rather think I won't."

"Why!" demanded Mrs. Overton, eagerly.

"Mother, you may think me reckless, and over-confident. But the fact is,
I've already been measured for my new uniforms."

"When? And when will they be here?"

"Do you remember the big mahogany chest that I brought with me from the
Philippines, Mother?"

"Yes."

"Well, the whole outfit of uniforms is packed in that chest."

"Henry Overton--you take me right upstairs and unlock that chest--this
instant!"

"Come on, Mother!" Hal called back, gayly, as he darted out of the
parlor and up the front stairs.

"And they've been here all this time," panted the mother, as her
officer-son brought out his key-ring and fumbled at the lock of the
mahogany chest. "And you--you--you told me the chest held clothes of
yours."

"Well, that wasn't a lie was it, Mother?" Hal threw up the lid and
lifted out a tray. "Now, wade into 'em. Look 'em over to your heart's
content. Here's the dress sword. Isn't it a beauty?"

Gripping the scabbard with his left hand, Hal drew out the handsome
blade with a flourish.

"Ugh! I don't like it, except to look at," shuddered his mother. "I hope
my son will never have any need to cut up a fellow-being with that
sword."

"Hardly likely," chuckled Hal. "An officer carries only a cane or a
stick of some sort just in order that he may point out the location of
the enemy, or to indicate some tree on the other side that he thinks has
a sharp-shooter up among the foliage, and, of course, he wears his heavy
service revolver."

"And an officer never leads a charge, flourishing his sword?"

"Hardly. The officer would be in too much danger from the bullets of his
own men if he got in front of them."

"Then an officer isn't in so very much danger, after all," guessed Mrs.
Overton, speaking in a tone of relief. "Some one in front of him will
stop the bullets."

"No one man can stop a bullet that's going under full steam, Mother. At
two or three hundred yards' range, to-day, a bullet will pass through
six or eight men in succession, if there are that many men in its path."

"I--I guess I don't want to hear any more of that kind of stuff,"
shivered the little woman. "It all sounds--awfully dangerous!"

But Hal's mother was