[_Looking to door. Calls._] Margery! Tea for two!

MARGERY. [_Without._] The tay be waiting for ye, sur; and it be
boilin' over wid impatience.

BUCKTHORN. Bring up a chair, Barket. [_Sitting in arm-chair._

BARKET. [_Having placed table and drawing up a chair._] Do you know,
Gineral, I don't fale quite aisy in my moind. I'm not quite sure that
Margery will let us take our tay together. [_Sits down, doubtfully._

BUCKTHORN. I hadn't thought of that. I--[_Glancing right._]--I
hope she will, Barket. But, of course, if she won't--she's been
commander-in-chief of my household ever since Jenny was a baby.

BARKET. At Fort Duncan, in Texas.

BUCKTHORN. You and Old Margery never got along very well in those
days; but I thought you had made it all up; she nursed you through
your wound, last summer, and after the battle of Cedar Creek, also.

BARKET. Yis, sur, bliss her kind heart, she's been like a wife to me;
and that's the trouble. A man's wife is such an angel when he's ill
that he dreads to get well; good health is a misfortune to him. Auld
Margery and I have had anither misunderstanding.

BUCKTHORN. I'll do the best I can for both of us, Barket. You were
telling me about the battle of--

BARKET. Just afther the battle of Sayder Creek began, whin Colonel