"Lookee here, pops, I'll give you these two silver wheels embossed with excellent profiles of our friend the noble savage if you just sew up my shirt and these buttons I bought from that old Lunar peddler - they're in the left pocket."

The Old Timer looked up at me, merry in his eye. "All rightee, son," he said. "Lay `er down."

So I did, and walked away bare-chested in my own longjohns, the camp uniform of us Regulars, penny-press engravings to the contrary. I was picking the twenty-two legged mites from my pits and slapping flies, singing for foolish joy,"Green grows the laurel, all sparklin' with dew - I'm so lonely my darlin' since partin' with you-oo - " when wild-faced Kelly dropped like balloon ballast down in my path, and thumped me smack in the nose.

"What in heck - ?" I cried, holding a handful of nose blood.

"I'll give you heck, Jack!" Kelly glared crazily at me, his eyes big as boot buckles. "You tryin' to ruinize my military career?" he shouted, hopping mad, flailing the air with his saber. (He had it buckled over his longjohns.) "Why don't you ask Sarah next time, you fool!"

So that was how I overcame my shyness, and took my trousers and such to Sarah, who took a liking to me, and slipped that little love- note in my pocket.

The first time I laid eyes on Sarah, it was just beyond all the neat lined rows of tents at Annex Agonies. I was taking a salt-water bath behind Mary Jane's Hospitality Shack in a wooden tub set under a scrappy Martian palm, (planted back when the Moon was a Martian dominion), when I heard such a buzzing howl, I had to stand up and peek around the shack. There was a jumble of Dough-Boys, Rangers, tarts, and one or two of the less stuck-up camp wives, all crouched and clutching one another with a mighty morbid glee. The center of attention was this tall cactus queen, with her long black hair all wild, who was in a barefoot crouch like a wrestler, hands up like claws. Her mean black eyes blazed bolts down at a big ugly rattler. The snake's knobby tail was flickering fast snick-snick-snick like a little demon snare drum. The arm and fist of the snake lifted up out of its broad, muscular coils, weaving back and forth, tongue snapping in and out in little lightnings. The cactus queen bobbed and weaved back and forth same as the snake. There was a slight snarl to her lip, as if to say, "Snake, you are my soup!" Then that snarl rose up in a wild grin that made her mean black eyes twinkle. All of a sudden she and the snake lunged together - the knot of mammal and reptile slipped free - and the cactus queen stood up straight and tall, holding up her fist. The little mobs shouted, slapping foreheads and fannies. The snake head protruded from her fingers, trying to snap. The coils seethed, wrapped tight around her wrist. The mob paid up:a pile of coins and script lay at the victor's feet. "Now I got up a little charity collection to buy that feller some breeches," she called, toeing the money. Before I realized she was talking about me, she pointed that snake my way:"Don't you think I didn't see you peeking at me buck- naked from your bath tub behind them bushes!" I blushed, but all the same, gave her a wink. Then, to my surprise, she winked too. She uncoiled the snake from her arm, and bull-whipped it against the dirt to kill it. Then, a minute later, as I was finishing up my bath, all of a sudden this snake comes flying over the shack, out of the sky, and splashes down in the water with me. My naked flight across camp caused no end of mirth.

So, recalling this, pinching my bloody nostrils, I was trying to make up my mind to jump under Kelly's swords and clobber him, if I could, but I recalled we weren't on our farm on the Chesapeake any more. He was an officer, now, his grade purchased fair and square, and I did not relish the thought of my back being tickled by the affection of Sergeant Mallory's nine-tailed cat. Kelly had already made plain his willingness to flaunt his fifteen cents worth of gold braid.

"Do you know, Dough-Boy," Kelly pronounced with exaggerated clarity, "just who that was you asked to - sew your buttons!"

"Who? That fat old slob? Who is he, Professor Morse? Napoleon II? What do I care who that fat old barn-burning son of a loco-foco is?"

"That, mind you - " whispered Kelly, stopping to grind his teeth on the grist-wheel of his frustration. He threw my shirt at me. " - That was General Taylor! (Oh, what are you goin' to do next! You should have stayed home with Ma!)" He clasped his hand over his face.

I didn't believe him. "Where's my two bits?"

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