Oah, da-am it all!' he says. 'I
wouldn't have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,' he says. 'I'll hunt him
up and apologise.'
"He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the General's
dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as
happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like
their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
"But the General was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the
average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
hand, and he talked like--like the _Ladies' Home Journal_. J'ever read
that paper? It's refined, Sir--and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated
sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia
Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done
me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked
me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I'd given his crowd--
specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks. He'd
wipe his long thin moustache between drinks--lime-juice and water he used
--and blat off into a long 'a-aah,' and ladle out more taffy for me or old
man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I'd had my first Pisgah-sight of
the principles of the Zigler when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a
star-route in Arkansas.
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