"Yes, there _is_ a story connected with that pair," said Colonel Elliott, who, from his side of the table, overheard the doctor's suggestion. He rose, transferred his chair and mug to a position next Kenryck, and continued: "In fact, when we began to fit up this place, we made it a rule not to admit among the decorations anything which didn't have a history of some sort. So, you see, The Battery is rather an interesting establishment, and if any of us had time or taste for that sort of thing we could get up a good-sized book without having to go outside these walls to hunt for material."
"It's a mighty interesting outfit--the whole of it," said Kenryck, glancing up and down the long room, and noting the collection of odds and ends upon the walls and in every nook and corner. "We're pretty well fixed, up at _our_ headquarters, but we've nothing so homelike as this. The general often says that he enjoys nothing more than an inspection of the Third, with a 'wind-up' afterwards up here. Possibly you've noticed that, on occasions of that sort, his whole staff is apt to come with him."
"Yes," said the colonel dryly, remembering the extra cases of beer which have to be laid in against such emergencies as an official visit from the brigade staff; "yes, I've noticed it. It's very flattering to us, I'm sure."
Kenryck must have been aware of something in the colonel's tone, for he promptly drew upon his reserve supply of tact and said, "Do you mind telling me the story of those horns? It's worth hearing, I know, for Sawin put me up to asking for it."
"It's an old story to 'Bones,'" said the colonel, adding, as Sam passed him, "Break into another case, Sam, and then chuck a couple more sticks into the fire."
"It must be a good one, then, or he never would have let me in for it," remarked Kenryck.
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the colonel, laughing; "the doctor's capable of almost anything inhuman, and he may be paying off an old score, for all _you_ know, by letting you in for a twenty-minute bore. 'Bones,' what's your grudge against Kenryck?"--but the surgeon had joined a group at another table, and so the colonel, getting no reply to his question, went on: "Do you see that little ivory plate fastened to the shield on which the horns are mounted? Well, that bears an inscription something like this: