“Do you mean to say as you’ve tried to enlist?” cried Mrs. McGillicuddy, struggling with the baby and her astonishment and indignation all at once.  “The idea of you being a soldier!  It beats the band, it does!”

Sergeant Briggs, without giving Kettle time to explain further, marched him off, and Mrs. McGillicuddy went to report to Mrs. Fortescue, while Sergeant McGillicuddy appeared to report to Colonel Fortescue.

“I believe, sir,” said the Sergeant confidentially, “as it’s a crooked business about the naygur’s wantin’ to enlist.  Gully and Sergeant Halligan was jokin’, but it’s mighty risky jokin’ with the regulations.”

So thought Sergeant Halligan and Sergeant Gully, when confronted with the Colonel.  As they were two of the best sergeants in the regiment, the Colonel satisfied himself with a stern reprimand, which was not entered against them.  But having sentenced Kettle to three days in the guardhouse for insolence to Sergeant Briggs, Colonel Fortescue thought it well to let the sentence stand.

Colonel Fortescue, in spite of being the commanding officer at one of the finest cavalry posts in the world, and whose word was law, could yet be made to feel domestic displeasure.  The family at once divided itself into two camps, one on the Colonel’s side and one on Kettle’s.  Anita, of course, sided with her father, and declared he had done perfectly right about Kettle, as he did about everything.  Sergeant McGillicuddy was also a faithful adherent of the Colonel’s in the wordless warfare that prevailed in the commanding officer’s house for the three days in which Kettle enjoyed the hospitality of the guardhouse.

“Served the naygur right for sassing a sergeant,” was Sergeant McGillicuddy’s view.  On the other side was arrayed, of course, Mrs. Fortescue, who outwardly observed an armed neutrality, but who called the Colonel “John” during the entire three days of Kettle’s imprisonment.  Colonel Fortescue retaliated by calling Mrs. Fortescue “Elizabeth.”

There were frequent references, in the Colonel’s hearing, to “Poor Kettle,” and the After-Clap was not rebuked in his insistent demand for “my Kettle, I want my Kettle!  Where is my Kettle?”

At intervals, from the time he waked in the morning until Mrs. McGillicuddy put him in his crib at night, the After-Clap was screaming for Kettle, and as the baby was extremely robust, his shrieks and wails for Kettle were clearly audible to the Colonel, sitting grimly in his private office, or at luncheon, or having his tea in the drawing-room.  Colonel Fortescue, however, spent most of his time during those three days at the headquarters building or the officers’ club.  As for Mrs. McGillicuddy, she was openly on the side of Kettle and against the Colonel, and shrewdly surmised exactly what had happened about the enlistment, and also that Sergeant McGillicuddy was implicated with the other two sergeants in the outrage.  Mrs. McGillicuddy boldly propounded this theory to Mrs. Fortescue while the latter was dressing for dinner on the first evening of Kettle’s incarceration.  The Colonel, in the next room, going through the same process of dressing, could hear every word through the open door.