bellows in his broad chest. "Hugo, I don't like to hear you talk that
way," he added, shaking his head sadly. Such views from a friend really
hurt him; indeed, he was almost lugubrious. This brought another laugh.

"Don't you see he's getting you, Gene?"

"He's acting!"

"He always gets you, you old simpleton!" The judge's son gave Eugene an
affectionate dig in the ribs.

Eugene was well liked and in the way that a big Saint Bernard dog is
liked. At the latest manoeuvres, on the night that their division had
made a rapid flank movement, without any apparent sense that his own
load was the heavier for it, he had carried the rifle and pack of Peter
Kinderling, a valet's pasty-faced little son "Peterkin," as he was
called, was the stupid of Company B. Being generally inoffensive, the
butt of the drill sergeant, who thought that he would never learn even
the manual of arms, and rounding out the variety of characters which
makes for fellowship, he was regarded with a sympathetic kindliness by
his comrades.

"But I don't think you ought to joke about the flag That's sacred!"
declared Eugene.

"Now you're talking!" said Jacob Pilzer, the butcher's son, who sat on
the other side of the bench from Eugene. He was heavily built, with an
undershot jaw and a patch of liverish birthmark on his cheek.

"Yes," piped Peterkin, who had an opinion when the two strong men of the