"That's just because you're a duck-legged snipe," answered Gid wrathfully. "Do you mean to?"You don't want to act hastily, friends, now do you?"Col. Billings," said Shorty, standing stiff as a ramrod and curtly saluting, "the General wants you to come to Headquarters at once."Monty scratched his head to think of something appropriate, and then occurred to him Webster's great speech in defense of the union, which was then a favorite in the schools."Here he is!" someone shouted. "I told you he'd be here ... I told you...." Dodd turned but the words weren't meant for him. Down the corridor a knot of men and women was surrounding a new arrival from somewhere else, laughing and talking. As he stepped forward, his eyes still on that celebration, a pathway opened up for him; he was in sober black and he went through the corridor like a pencil-mark down paper, leaving an open trail as he passed.