For a week he had been giving a “good-bye party” every evening in his handsome house on Twenty-third Street.  The four men and the three young girls in the other room were the residue of this party, which was to be the last.

Arthur Wye, wearing the brand-new uniform, red stripes and facings, of flying artillery, rose also; John Casson buttoned his cavalry jacket, grumbling, and stood heavily erect, a colossus in blue and yellow.

“You have the devil’s luck, Berkley,” he said without bitterness.

“I need it.”

“So you do, poor old boy.  But—­God! you play like a professional.”

Wye yawned, thrust his strong, thin hands into his trousers pockets, and looked stupidly at the ceiling.

“I wish to heaven they’d start our battery,” he said vacantly.  “I’m that sick of Hamilton!”

Casson grumbled again, settling his debts with Berkley.

“Everybody has the devil’s own luck except the poor God-forsaken cavalry.  Billy Cortlandt goes tomorrow, your battery is under orders, but nobody cares what happens to the cavalry.  And they’re the eyes and ears of an army——­”

“They’re the heels and tail of it,” observed Berkley, “and the artillery is the rump.”

“Shut up, you sneering civilian!”

“I’m shutting up—­shop—­unless anybody cares to try one last cold hand—­” He caught the eye of the girl at the piano and smiled pallidly. “‘Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames!’ Also I have them all scared to death, Miss Carew—­the volunteer army of our country is taking water.”

“It doesn’t taste like water,” said the pretty singer on the sofa, stretching out her bubbling glass, “try it yourself, Mr. Berkley.”

They went toward the music room; Cortlandt seated himself on top of the piano.  He looked rather odd there in his zouave jacket, red trousers, white-gaitered legs hanging.

  “Oh the Zou-zou-zou! 
  Oh the Zou-zou-zou! 
  Oh the boys of the bully Zouaves!”

he hummed, swinging his legs vigorously.  “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s all over but the shooting.  Arthur, I saw your battery horses; they belong in a glue factory.  How arc you going to save your guns when the rebs come after you?”

“God knows, especially if the Zouaves support us,” replied Wye, yawning again.  Then, rising: 

“I’ve got to get back to that cursed fort.  I’ll escort anybody who’ll let me.”

“One more glass, then,” said Cortlandt.  “Berkley, fill the parting cup!  Ladies of the Canterbury, fair sharers of our hospitality who have left the triumphs of the drama to cheer the unfortunate soldier on his war-ward way, I raise my glass and drink to each Terpsichorean toe which, erstwhile, was pointed skyward amid the thunder of metropolitan plaudits, and which now demurely taps my flattered carpet.  Gentlemen—­soldiers and civilians—­I give you three toasts!  Miss Carew, Miss Lynden, Miss Trent!  Long may they dance!  Hurrah!”