"It wouldn't be exactly what you call going off the stage to slow music," said Miss Saucy, as a sharp and imperative "Halt!" came from the young corporal's lips. The girls refreshed themselves with a prolonged titter, the weary plebs dropped down upon the grass. Magnus walked slowly down the road.
"I wonder if one might venture to address his High Mightiness, in these his moments of comparative leisure?" said Miss Dangleum. "They are so pernickity about drills. Mr. Kindred!" (softly and experimentally). Magnus turned within a yard of the young lady and paced back.
"Oh, Mr. Kindred! If there was a snake here, could you come and kill it? Wouldn't a rattlesnake be against regulations?"
And now there was a smothered laugh among the plebs. But the corporal turned and took his way past the ladies again, and gave no sign.
"Mr. Kindred!" (very pleadingly) while one pretty hand held out a box of brown chocolates and another a red-cheeked peach. In apparently deep abstraction Mr. Kindred once more paced down the road.
"I'll throw it at him! I vow I will," said Miss Saucy. "If I could knock his cap off, I should die radiant."
And she did her best. But some puff of adverse wind, some swerve in the fair hand, spoiled all; the corporal's cap maintained its position; the peach fell harmlessly at his feet.
"I'll go home after that," said Miss Saucy. "The only thought left to make life bearable is, that he'll come back after drill and pick it up." But he did not.
Parade followed drill, and supper came after parade; and then in the cool evening light people began to gather for band concert. What pleasure Magnus had had there with his mother, night after night! This time he did not want to see anybody or hear anything. Yet the evening's witchery kept him out of his tent, and the unearthly sweetness from some of the brass instruments drew him, little by little, into the group around the band. Pretty soon Rig touched him on the shoulder.
"Wants to show you how she's done her back hair."
"Don't get off any grinds on me to-night," said Magnus, "I'm not in the mood."
"All right. I'll go back and report that you are out of town, and have left a bear to keep house."
Which apparently he did, to judge by the shout of laughter that went up.
