"Three for the Skipper! Give him three and a tiger!" somebody pleaded,
and the cheers were given with a hearty generosity which even the most
disgruntled organization can develop on the day of demobilization.

The skipper came to the door of the orderly-room.

"Good-by, good luck, and God bless you, lads!" he shouted, and nod with
the discharges under his arm, while the battery "counted off," and, in
command of Farrel (the lieutenants had already been demobilized), marched
to the pay-tables. As they emerged from the paymaster's shack, they
scattered singly, in little groups, back to the demobilization-shacks.
Presently, bearing straw suitcases, "tin" helmets, and gas-masks (these
latter articles presented to them by a paternal government as souvenirs
of their service), they drifted out through the Presidio gate, where the
world swallowed them.

Although he had been the first man in the battery to receive his
discharge, Farrel was the last man to leave the Presidio. He waited
until the captain, having distributed the discharges, came out of the
pay-office and repaired again to his deserted orderly-room; whereupon the
former first sergeant followed him.

"I hesitate to obtrude, sir," he announced, as he entered the room, "but
whether the captain likes it or not, he'll have to say good-by to me. I
have attended to everything I can think of, sir; so, unless the captain
has some further use for me, I shall be jogging along."

"Farrel," the captain declared, "if I had ever had a doubt as to why I
made you top cutter of B battery, that last remark of yours would have