"Then Crabtree is in command of the company; or has Captain Howell been relieved? He was on detached service in Washington, the last I heard from him," remarked Major Stanford. But Mr. Grumpet interrupted:
"There you are wrong, again; Crabtree is not with them at all."
"Why, how's that?" was asked from all sides; even Mrs. Stanford had looked up.
Whenever Grumpet had a good thing he always made the most of it; and it was irresistibly charming to let Mrs. Stanford see that he knew more than all the rest put together.
"Ahem! Mr. Crabtree, senior lieutenant of Company 'H,' Forty-third Infantry, has exchanged, with the sanction of the War Department, with Mr. Addison--Charlie Addison, you know--of Company 'D,' Sixty-fifth Infantry."
In an "aside" to himself, he continued: "Well, I declare! I've astonished Mrs. Stanford by my superior knowledge. Why, she's actually staring at me."
So she was; or, at least, her eyes were wide open, and her face was pale as death.
"Are you sick, Eva, my child?" asked the major; "or do you see anything that frightens you?"
"Neither," she answered, passing her hand over her face; "only tired a little."
"There," put in the doctor, "I _thought_ Mrs. Stanford had baked those tarts and prepared the salad, with her own hands, to-day, and now I am certain of it; and I prescribe that the gentlemen immediately depart from here, and leave Mrs. Stanford to rest, and her own reflections."
Her own reflections! They crowded on her fast and unbidden, when left alone by her husband and the rest of the officers. Marcelita, after having repeatedly assured her mistress that the house was free from invading vermin, had settled down on the floor, with her back against the wall, when she found that Eva paid no heed to what she said. After awhile she grew bolder, and lighted and smoked _cigarritos_, enjoying them to her heart's content, while Eva was enjoying "her own reflections."
"My dear child, did I stay out late? We all went into the sutler's a little while, after taps. Did you sit up to wait for me?" asked the major, kindly, breaking in on Eva's reflections.
Marcelita had started up out of a sound sleep when the major had first entered the room, and she rolled into her own little tent now, into her bed, and back into the arms of the drowsy god, without once thinking of scorpion or tarantula.