ceremony of guard-mounting. He might have nothing to say to them, or he
might have a good deal; and he was a man capable of saying a good deal
in very few words, and meaning exactly what he said. It was his custom
to look up from his writing as each officer entered and respond to the
respectful salutation tendered him with an equally punctilious
"Good-morning, Captain Gregg," or "Good-morning, Mr. Blake,"--never
omitting the mention of the name, unless, as was sometimes tried, a
squad of them came in together and made their obeisance as a body. In
this event the colonel simply looked each man in the face, as though
taking mental note of the individual constituents of the group, and
contented himself with a "Good-morning, gentlemen."

When in addition to six troops of his own regiment of cavalry there were
sent to the post a major and four companies of infantry, some of the
junior officers of the latter organization had suggested to their
comrades of the yellow stripes that as the colonel had no roll-call it
might be a matter of no great risk to "cut the _matinée_" on some of the
fiendishly cold mornings that soon set in; but the experiment was never
designedly tried, thanks, possibly, to the frank exposition of his
personal views as expressed by Lieutenant Blake, of the cavalry, who
said, "Try it if you are stagnating for want of a sensation, my genial
plodder, but not if you value the advice of one who has been there, so
to speak. The chief will spot you quicker than he can a missing shoe,--a
missing _horse_shoe, Johnny, let me elaborate for your
comprehension,--and the next question will be, 'Mr. Bluestrap, did you
intentionally absent yourself?' and _then_ how will you get out of it?"

The _matinées_, so called, were by no means unpopular features of the
daily routine. The officers were permitted to bring their pipes or
cigars and take their after-breakfast smoke in the big, roomy office of