"Know what they used to call me in the Army?" he asked.
"Slaughterhouse Hampton. They claimed I needed a truckload of sawdust to
follow me around and cover up the blood." He chuckled. "Nobody but you
would think of calling me Popsy."
There was a price, he found, that he must pay for Dearest's
companionship--the price of eternal vigilance. He found that he was
acquiring the habit of opening doors and then needlessly standing aside
to allow her to precede him. And, although she insisted that he need not
speak aloud to her, that she could understand any thought which he
directed to her, he could not help actually pronouncing the words, if
only in a faint whisper. He was glad that he had learned, before the end
of his plebe year at West Point, to speak without moving his lips.
Besides himself and the kitten, Smokeball, there was one other at
"Greyrock" who was aware, if only faintly, of Dearest's presence. That
was old Sergeant Williamson, the Colonel's Negro servant, a retired
first sergeant from the regiment he had last commanded.
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