Captain."

"Well, you got more than I. What's the matter; do you want to
carry my bag?"

"Yes, sir."

"You don't have to."

"No, Captain. . . . If you don't object, sir, I'll carry it."

They found seats together; Philip, amused, tried to extract from
Burgess something besides the trite and obvious servant's
patter--something that might signify some possibility of a latent
independence--the germ of aspiration. And extracted nothing.
Burgess had not changed, had not developed. His ways were Philip's
ways; his loftier flights mounted no higher toward infinity than
the fashions prevailing in the year 1862, and their suitability to
his master's ultimate requirements.

For his regiment, for its welfare, its hopes, its glory, he
apparently cared nothing; nor did he appear to consider the part he
had borne in its fluctuating fortunes anything to be proud of.

Penned with the others in the brush field, he had done stolidly
what his superiors demanded of him; and it presently came out that
the only anxiety that assailed him was when, in the smoke of the
tangled thickets, he missed his late master.

"Well, what do you propose to do after the regiment is mustered
out?" inquired Philip curiously.

"Wait on you, sir."

"Don't you _want_ to do anything else?"

"No, sir."'

Philip looked at him, smiling.

"I suppose you like my cigars, and my brandy and my linen?"

The ghost of .a grin touched the man's features.

"Yes, sir," he said with an impudence that captivated Philip.

"All right, my friend; I can stand it as long as you can. . . .
And kindly feel in my overcoat for a cigar wrapped in paper. I'll
go forward and smoke for a while."

"Sir?"

"The cigar--I put it in my overcoat pocket wrapped in a bit of
paper. . . . You--you don't mean to tell me that it's not there!"

Burgess searched the pockets with a perfectly grave face.

"It ain't here; no, sir."

Philip flung himself into the corner of his seat, making no effort
to control his laughter:

"Burgess," he managed to say, "the dear old days are returning
already. I'll stay here and read; you go forward and smoke that
cigar. Do you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

Again, just as he had done every day since leaving camp, he reread
Ailsa's letter, settling down in his corner by the dirty, rattling
window-pane:

"Everybody writes to you except myself. I know they have told you
that it is taking a little longer for me to get well than anybody
ex