ers,"
quietly.

Carmichael sat up. He had not expected so large an order as this.

"I am afraid you are asking something impossible for me to obtain," he
replied coldly, thumbing the leaves of his book.

"Ah, Mr. Carmichael, it is very important that I should be there."

"Explain."

"I can give you no explanations. I wish to attend this ball. I do not
care to meet the grand duke or any one else. Put me in the gallery where
I shall not be noticed. That is all I ask of you."

"That might be done. But you have roused my curiosity. Your request is
out of the ordinary. You have some purpose?"

"A perfectly harmless one," said Grumbach, mopping his forehead.

This movement brought Carmichael's eye to the scar. Grumbach
acknowledged the stare by running his finger along the subject.

"I came near passing in my checks the day I got that," he volunteered.
"Everybody looks at it when I take off my hat. I've tried tonics, but
the hair won't grow there."

"Where did you get it?"

"At Gettysburg."

"Gettysburg?" with a lively facial change. "You were in the war?"

"All through it."

Carmichael was no longer indifferent. He gave his hand.

"I've got a few scars myself. What regiment?"

"The --th cavalry, New York."

"What troop?" with growing excitement.

"C troop."

"I was captain of B troop in the same regiment. Hurrah! Work's over for
the day. Come along with me, Grumbach, and we'll talk it over
down-stairs in the Black Eagle. You're a godsend. C troop! Hanged if the
world doesn't move things about oddly. I was in the hospital myself
after Gettysburg; a ball in the leg. And I've rheumatism even now when
a damp spell comes."

So down to the tavern they went, and there they talked the battles over,
sundry tankards interpolating. It was "Do you remember this?" and, "Do
you recall that?" with diagrams drawn in beer on the oaken table.

"But there's one thing, my boy," said Carmichael.

"What's that?"

"The odds were on our side, or we'd be fighting yet."

"That we would. The poor devils were always hungry when we whipped them
badly."

"But you're from this side of the water?"

"Yes; went over when I was twenty-two." Grumbach sucked his pipe
stolidly.

"What part of Germany?"

"Bavaria; it is so written in my passports."

"Munich?"

Grumbach circled the room. All the near tables were vacant. The Black
Eagle was generally a lonely place till late in the afternoon. Grumbach
touched the scar tende