reforms. And there's another hitch!--To belong to the Truly Good at
twenty-four! But beggars can't be choosers. He's going to settle something
handsome on Moya out of the portion Madame gives him on his marriage. My
poor little girl, as you know, will get nothing from me but a few old bits
and trinkets and a father's blessing,--the same doesn't go for much in
these days. I have been a better dispenser than accumulator, like others
of our name.

"I do assure you, Annie, it bores me down to the ground, this humanitarian
racket from children with ugly names who have just chipped the shell. This
one owns his surprise that we _work_ in the army! That our junior officers
teach, and study a bit perforce themselves. His own idea is that every
West Pointer, before he gets his commission, should serve a year or two in
the ranks, to raise the type of the enlisted man, and chiefly, mark you,
to get his point of view, the which he is to bear in mind when he comes to
his command. Oh, we've had some pretty arguments! But I suspect the rascal
of drawing it mild, at this stage, for the old dragon who guards his
Golden Apple. He doesn't want to poke me up. How far he'd go if he were
not hampered in his principles by the fact that he is in love, I cannot
say. And I'd rather not imagine."

The commandant's house at Bisuka Barracks is the nearest one to the
flag-pole as you go up a flight of wooden steps from the parade ground.
These steps, and their landings, flanked by the dry grass terrace of the
line, are a favorite gathering place for young persons of leisure at the
Post. They face the valley and the mountains; they lead past the
adjutant's office to the main road to town; they command the daily pageant
of garrison duty as performed at such distant, unvisited posts, with only
the ladies and the mountains looking on.