“I’ll give ’em something to print later on,” answered the General, grimly.  Then his expression changed.  “Brinsmade, you fellows did have a session with Fremont, didn’t you?  Anderson sent me over here last September, and the first man I ran across at the Planters’ House was Appleton. ‘—­What are you in town for?’ says he.  ‘To see Fremont,’ I said.  You ought to have heard Appleton laugh.  ’You don’t think Fremont’ll see you, do you?’ says he.  ‘Why not?’ ‘Well,’ says Tom, ’go ’round to his palace at six to-morrow morning and bribe that Hungarian prince who runs his body-guard to get you a good place in the line of senators and governors and first citizens, and before nightfall you may get a sight of him, since you come from Anderson.  Not one man in a hundred,’ says Appleton, I not one man in a hundred, reaches his chief-of-staff.’  Next morning,” the General continued in a staccato which was often his habit, “had breakfast before daybreak and went ’round there.  Place just swarming with Californians—­army contracts.” (The General sniffed.) Saw Fremont.  Went back to hotel.  More Californians, and by gad—­old Baron Steinberger with his nose hanging over the register.”

“Fremont was a little difficult to get at, General,” said Mr. Brinsmade.  “Things were confused and discouraged when those first contracts were awarded.  Fremont was a good man, and it wasn’t his fault that the inexperience of his quartermasters permitted some of those men to get rich.”

“No,” said the General.  “His fault!  Certainly not.  Good man!  To be sure he was—­didn’t get along with Blair.  These court-martials you’re having here now have stirred up the whole country.  I guess we’ll hear now how those fortunes were made.  To listen to those witnesses lie about each other on the stand is better than the theatre.”

Stephen laughed at the comical and vivid manner in which the General set this matter forth.  He himself had been present one day of the sittings of the court-martial when one of the witnesses on the prices of mules was that same seedy man with the straw-colored mustache who had bid for Virginia’s piano against the Judge.

“Come, Stephen,” said the General, abruptly, “run and snatch one of those pretty girls from my officers.  They’re having more than their share.”

“They deserve more, sir,” answered Stephen.  Whereupon the General laid his hand impulsively on the young man’s shoulder, divining what Stephen did not say.

“Nonsense!” said be; “you are doing the work in this war, not we.  We do the damage—­you repair it.  If it were not for Mr. Brinsmade and you gentlemen who help him, where would our Western armies be?  Don’t you go to the front yet a while, young man.  We need the best we have in reserve.”  He glanced critically at Stephen.  “You’ve had military training of some sort?”

“He’s a captain in the Halleck Guards, sir,” said Mr. Brinsmade, generously, “and the best drillmaster we’ve had in this city.  He’s seen service, too, General.”