Now, in the middle of a quotation outlining the virtues of the Bengal spear, he broke off abruptly.
"Miss Hooper!" he announced. "A thought has occurred to me!"
Katie Hooper sniffed.
If he had to be formal, why couldn't he just say sergeant?
Other senior officers had always addressed her as my dear or sweetheart, at least when they were alone. Miss Hooper, indeed!
She sniffed again, and said,
"Yessir."
Colonel Pollard snorted, apparently to clear his mind.
"I can state it as a principle," he began, "that the mania for these so-called scientific weapons is a grave menace to the security of the United States.
Flying in the face of the immutable science of war, we are building one unproved weapon after another, counter-weapons against these weapons, counter-counter-weapons, and—and so on.
Armed to the teeth with theories and delusions, we soon may stand impotent—Did you hear me, Miss Hooper? Impotent—"
Miss Hooper snickered and said,
"Yessir."
"—against the onrush of some Attila," shouted the Colonel, "some modern Genghis Khan, as yet unborn, who will sweep away our tinkering technicians like chaff, and carve his empire with cavalry—with horse and sword!" "Yessir," said his secretary. "Today," the Colonel thundered, "we have no cavalry!
A million mounted moujiks could—"
But the world was not destined to find out just what a million mounted moujiks could or could not do.
The door burst open. From the outer office, there came a short, sharp squeal.
A plump young officer catapulted across the room, braked to a halt before the Colonel's desk, saluted wildly.
"Oooh!" gasped Katie Hooper, staring with vast blue eyes.
The Colonel's face turned suddenly to stone.
And the young officer caught his breath long enough to cry,
"My God, it—it's happened, sir!"
Lieutenant Hanson was no combat soldier; he was a scientist.
He had made no appointment. He had entered without knocking, in a most unmilitary manner.
And—And—
"MISTER!" roared Colonel Pollard. "WHERE ARE YOUR TROUSERS?"
For Lieutenant Hanson obviously was wearing none.
Nor was he wearing socks or shoes.
And the tattered tails of his shirt barely concealed his shredded shorts.
"SPEAK UP, DAMMIT!" Vacantly, the Lieutenant glanced at his lower limbs and back again. He began to tremble.
"They—they ate them!" he blurted.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you!
Lord knows how he does it! He's about eighty, and he's a—a foreman in a cuckoo-clock factory!
But it's the perfect weapon!
And it works, it works, it works!"
He laughed hysterically. "The gnurrs come from the voodvork out!" he sang, clapping his hands.
Here Colonel Pollard rose from his chair, vaulted his desk, and tried to calm Lieutenant Hanson by shaking him vigorously.
"Disgraceful!" he shouted in his ear.
"Turn your back!" he ordered the blushing Katie Hooper. "NONSENSE!" he bellowed when the Lieutenant tried to chatter something about gnurrs.
And, "Vot iss nonzense, soldier boy?" enquired Papa Schimmelhorn from the doorway.
The Lieutenant pointed unsteadily at Colonel Pollard. "Gnurrs iss nonzense!" he snickered. "He says so."
"Ha!"
Papa Schimmelhorn glared.
"I show you, soldier boy!"
The Colonel erupted.
"Soldier boy? SOLDIER BOY?
Stand at attention when I speak to you! ATTENTION, DAMN YOU!"
Papa Schimmelhorn, of course, paid no attention whatsoever.
He raised his secret weapon to his lips, and the first bars of "Come To The Church In The Wildwood" moaned around the room.
"Mister Hanson!" raged the Colonel. "Arrest that man!