The Cavalier | Page 4

some folks think he does--is to advocate drinking, and
to advocate drinking is next door to excusing drunkenness!"
"Then Ned Ferry doesn't drink?"
"Indeed he does! I don't like to say it, and I don't say he drinks 'too
much', as they call it; but, Smith, he drinks with men who do! Oh, I

admire him; only I do wish--"
"Wish what?"
"Oh, I--I wish he wouldn't play cards. Smith, I've seen him play cards
with the shells bursting over us!"
For my part I privately wished this saint wouldn't rub my uninteresting
surname into me every time he spoke. As we dismounted near the tents
I leaned against my saddle and asked further concerning the object of
his loving anxiety. Was Ned Ferry generous, pleasant, frank?
"Why, in outward manner, yes; but, Smith, he was raised to be a
Catholic priest. I could a heap-sight easier trust him if he'd sometimes
show distrust, himself. If he ever does I've never seen it. And yet--Oh,
we're the best of friends, and I'm speaking now only as a friend and toe
a friend. Oh, if it wa'n't for just one thing, I could admit what Major
Harper said of him not ten minutes ago to me; that you never finish
talking to Ned Ferry without feeling a little brighter, happier and
cleaner than when you began; whereas talking with some men it's just
the reverse."
I looked carefully at my companion and asked him if the Major had
said all of that. He had, and Gholson's hide had turned it without taking
a scratch. "That's fine!--as to Ferry," I said.
"Oh, yes,--it would be--if it was only iso. Trouble is, you keep
remembering he's such a stumbling-block to any real spiritual inquirer.
Yes, and to himself; for, you know, spiritually there's so much less
hope for the moralist than what there is for the up-and-down reprobate!
You know that,--Smith."
My silence implied that I knew it, though I did not feel any brighter,
happier or cleaner.
"Smith, Ned Ferry is not only a Romanist, he's a romanticist. We--you
and me--are religionists. Our brightness and happiness air the
brightness and happiness of faith; our cleanness is the cleanness of

religious scruples. Worst of it with Ned is he's satisfied with the
difference, I'm afraid! That's what makes him so pleasant to fellows
who don't care a sou marquee about religion."
I said one might respect religion even if he did not--
"Oh, he's always polite to it; but he's--he's read Voltaire! Oh, yes,
Voltaire, George Sand, all those men. He questions the Bible, Smith.
Not to me, though; hah, he knows better! Smith, I can discuss religion
and not get mad, with any one who don't question the Bible; but if he
does that, I just tell you, I wouldn't risk my soul in such a discussion!
Would you?"
I could hardly say, and we moved pensively toward Major Harper's tent.
Evidently the main poison was still in Gholson's stomach, and when I
glanced at him he asked, "What d'you reckon brought Ned Ferry here
just at this time?"
I made no reply. He looked momentous, leaned to me sidewise with a
hand horizontally across his mouth, and whispered a name. It was new
to me. "Charlie Toliver?" I murmured, for we were at the tent door.
"The war-correspondent," whispered Gholson; "don't you know?" But
the flap of the tent lifted and I could not reply.

III
SHE
Major Harper was the most capable officer on the brigade staff. I had
never met a man of such force and dignity who was so modestly affable.
His new clerk dined with him that first day, at noon in his tent, alone.
Hot biscuits! with butter! and rock salt. Fried bacon also--somewhat
vivacious, but still bacon. When the tent began to fill with the smoke of
his meerschaum pipe, and while his black boy cleared the table for us
to resume writing, we talked of books. Here was joy! I vaunted my love
for history, biography, the poets, but spoke lightly of fiction.

The smoker twinkled. "You're different from Ned Ferry," he said.
"Has he a taste for fiction?" I asked, with a depreciative smirk.
"Yes, a beautiful story is a thing Ned Ferry loves with a positive
passion."
"I suppose we might call him a romanticist," said I, "might we not?"
The patient gentleman smiled again as he said, "Oh--Gholson can
attend to that."
I took up my pen, and until twilight we spoke thereafter only of
abstracts and requisitions. But then he led me on to tell him all about
myself. I explained why my first name was Richard and my second
name Thorndyke, and dwelt especially on the enormous differences
between the Smiths from whom we were and those from whom we
were