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"What in God's name," he roared, fixing his glance upon Alspaugh so unmistakably that enve the latter's rainbow-clad girls, who had crowded up closely, could not make a mistake as to the victim of the expletives. "What in God's name, sir," repeated the old fellow with purpling face, "do you mean by bringing your company on to the ground in that absurd way, sir?
"Order an 'about face," whispered the Orderly-Sergeant, whose face was burning with shame at the awkward position in which the company found itself. "ABOUT FACE!" gasped Alspaugh. The men turned on their heels. "Side-step to the right," whispered the Orderly. "Side-step to the right," repeated Alspaugh, mechanically.
A laugh rippled down the ranks of the other companies; even the spectators smiled, and something sounded like swearing by the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major. Alspaugh lifted his plumed hat, and wiped the beaded perspiration from his brow with the back of one of the yellow gauntlets.
Jake Alspaugh began to think that there was not likely to be any fight after all, and his spirits rose proportionately. Abe Bolton growled that the cowardly officers had no doubt deliberately misled the regiment, that a fight might be avoided. Kent Edwards saw a nodding May-apple flower as fair as a calla and as odorous as a pink at a little distance, and hastened to pick it.
They were too far away to hear what was said, but not so far that they could not recognize the skulker as Lieutenant Jacob Alspaugh. The Provost Marshal apparently demanded the skulker's name, and wrote it in a book. Alspaugh seemed to give the information, and accompanied it with a lugubrious pointint to a bandage around his knee.
Lieutenant Alspaugh also heard, studied over the unwelcome possibilities shrouded in the gathering gloom of the distance, and regretted that he had not, before crossing the Ohio, called the Surgeon's attention to some premonitory symptoms of rheumatism, which he felt he might desire to develop into an acute attack in the event of danger assuming an unpleasant proximity.
He orderd the blister to be taken off, and the inflamed surfaces properly dressed, which was done to the accompaniment of Jake's agonizing groans. "I think Lieutenant Alspaugh will be content to go back to the field in a few days, if we continue this vigorous treatment," Dr. Denslow said, a little later, as he came into the reading-room of the hospital where he found Rachel sitting alone.
You will have your quarters here with me, and be compelled to associate with no one but me, thus reducing your disagreeable companions at a single stroke, to one. And you will escape finally from all subserviency to Lieutenant Alspaugh, or indeed to any other officer in the regiment, except your humble servant. As to food, you will mess with me."
He was within a step of overtaking them when he heard one say, with toss of flaunting ribbons, and hoidenish giggle: "Did you EVER see ANY-body wilt as Alspaugh did when old Bite-Your-Head-Off-In-a-Minute was jawing him? It was so awfully FUNNY that I just thought I SHOULD DIE."
When at the command of "parade-rest," Alspaugh dropped his saber's point to the ground, he did it with the crushed feeling of a strutting cock which has been flung into the pond and emerges with dripping feathers.
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