The matinees, so called, were by no means unpopular features of the daily routine.  The officers were permitted to bring their pipes or cigars and take their after-breakfast smoke in the big, roomy office of the commander, just as they were permitted to enjoy the post-prandial whiff when at evening recitation in the same office they sat around the room, chatting in low tones, for half an hour, while the colonel received the reports of his adjutant, the surgeon, and the old and the new officer of the day.  Then any matters affecting the discipline or instruction or general interests of the command were brought up; both sides of the question were presented, if question arose; the decision was rendered then and there, and the officers were dismissed for the day with the customary “That’s all, gentlemen.”  They left the office well knowing that only in the event of some sudden emergency would they be called thither again or disturbed in their daily vocations until the same hour on the following morning.  Meantime, they must be about their work:  drills, if weather permitted; stable-duty, no matter what the weather; garrison courts, boards of survey, the big general court that was perennially dispensing justice at the post, and the long list of minor but none the less exacting demands on the time and attention of the subalterns and company commanders.  The colonel was a strict, even severe, disciplinarian, but he was cool, deliberate, and just.  He “worked” his officers, and thereby incurred the criticism of a few, but held the respect of all.  He had been a splendid cavalry-commander in the field of all others where his sterling qualities were sure to find responsive appreciation in his officers and men,—­on active and stirring campaigns against the Indians,—­and among his own regiment he knew that deep in their hearts the ——­th respected and believed in him, even when they growled at garrison exactions which seemed uncalled for.  The infantry officers knew less of him as a sterling campaigner, and were not so well pleased with his discipline.  It was all right for him to “rout out” every mother’s son in the cavalry at reveille, because all the cavalry officers had to go to stables soon afterwards,—­that was all they were fit for,—­but what on earth was the use of getting them—­the infantry—­out of their warm beds before sunrise on a wintry morning and having no end of roll-calls and such things through the day, “just to keep them busy”?  The real objection—­the main objection—­to the colonel’s system was that it kept a large number of officers, most of whom were educated gentlemen, hammering all day long at an endless routine of trivial duties, allowing actually no time in which they could read, study, or improve their minds; but, as ill luck would have it, the three young gentlemen who decided to present to the colonel this view of the case had been devoting what spare time they could find to a lively game of poker down at “the store,” and their petition for “more time to themselves”